LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



j \ to n 



Chap. __. Copyright No. 

Shelf.i5i_4„. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/ 



HOW TO GET ON 
IN THE WORLD; 



OR, 



A LADDER TO PRACTICAL SUCCESS. 



. «SSa.^$$! '"•"" 1 




Major A. R. Calhoun. 



*W* 



Jti 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE CHEISTIAN HEI^^Cr), 

Louis Klopsch, Proprietor, 

BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK. 



^ 

£,•*" 



Copyright 1895, 
By Louis Klopsch. 



Press and Bindery op 
HISTORICAL PUBLISHING CO., 

PHILADELPHIA. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGB 

I. — What is Success ? 13 

II. — The Importance of Character 19 

m. — Home Influences 26 

IV. — Association 33 

V. — Courage and Determined Effort 38 

VI. — The Importance of Correct Habits ... 46 

VII. — As to Marriage 56 

VIII. — Education as Distinguished from 

Learning..... 63 

rx. — The Value of Experience 73 

X. — Selecting a Calling 84 

XI. — We Must Help Ourselves 90 

XII. — Successful Farming 101 

Xni.— As to Public Life 109 

XIV.— The Need of Constant Effort 118 

XV. — Some of Labor's Compensations 127 

XVI. — Patience and Perseverance 139 

XVII. — Success but Seldom Accidental 157 

(11) 



1 2 Table of Contents. 

CHAPTER fiGE 

XVIII. — Cultivate Observation and Judgment 177 

XIX.— Singleness of Purpose 190 

XX. — Business and Brains 201 

XXL— Put Money in Thy Purse Honestly... 213 

XXII. —A Sound Mind in a Sound Body 22$ 

XXIII. — Labor Creates the Only True Nobility 247 
XXIV.— The Successful Man is Self-Made...,., 257 
XXV. — Unselfishness and Helpfulness 274 



HOW TO GET ON IN THE WORLD. 



CHAPTER L 

WHAT IS SUCCESS? 

It has been said that " Nothing Succeeds Like 
Success." What is Success ? If we consult the 
dictionaries, they will give us the etymology of 
this much used word, and in general terms the 
meaning will be " the accomplishment of a 
purpose." But as the objects in nearly every 
life differ, so success cannot mean the same 
thing to all men. 

The artist's idea of success is very different 
from that of the business man, and the scientist 
differs from both, as does the statesman from all 
three. We read of successful gamblers, burg- 
lars or freebooters, but no true success was ever 
won or ever can be won that sets at defiance the 
laws of God and man. 

To win, so that we ourselves and the world 
shall be the better for our having lived, we must 
begin the struggle with a high purpose, keeping 
ever before our minds the characters and 
methods of the noble men who have succeeded 
along the same lines. 

The young man beginning the battle of life 



14 How to Get on in the World, 

should never lose sight of the fact that the age 
of fierce competition is upon us, and that this 
competition must, in the nature of things, 
become more and more intense. Success grows 
less and less dependent on luck and chance. 
Preparation for the chosen field of effort, an 
industry that is increasing, a hope that never 
flags, a patience that never grows weary, a 
courage that never wavers, all these, and a trust 
in God, are the prime requisites of the man who 
w r ould win in this age of specialists and untir- 
ing activity. 

The purpose of this work is not to stimulate 
genius, for genius is a law unto itself and finds 
its compensation in its own original productions. 
Genius has benefited the world, without doubt, 
but too often its life compensation has been a 
crust and a garret. After death, in not a few 
cases, the burial was through charity of friends,, 
and this can hardly be called an adequate com- 
pensation, for the memorial tablet or monument 
that commemorates a life of privation, if not of 
absolute wretchedness. 

It is, perhaps, as well for the world that 
genius is phenomenal ; it is certainly well for 
the world that success is not dependent on it r 
and that every young man, and young woman 
too, blessed with good health and a mind 
capable of education, and principles that are- 
true and abiding, can win the highest positions 
in public and private life, and dying leave 
behind a heritage for their children, and an 
example for all who would prosper along the 



What is Success? 15 

same lines. And all this with the blessed 
assurance of hearing at last the Master's words : 
" Well done, good and faithful servant ! " 

" Whatever your hand finds to do, do with 
all your might." There is a manly ring in this 
fine injunction, that stirs like a bugle blast, 
" But what can my hands find to do ? How 
can I win ? Who will tell me the work for 
which I am best fitted ? Where is the kindly 
guide who will point out to me the life path 
that will lead to success ? " So far as is possible 
it will be the purpose of this book to reply fully 
to these all important questions, and by illustra- 
tion and example to show how others in the face 
of obstacles that would seem appalling to the 
weak and timid, carefully and prayerfully 
prepared themselves for what has been aptly 
called "the battle of life," and then in the 
language of General Jackson, "pitched in 
to win." 

A copy line, in the old writing books, reads, 
" Many men of many minds." It is this diver- 
sity of mind, taste and inclination that opens 
up to us so many fields of effort, and keeps any 
one calling or profession from being crowded by 
able men. Of the incompetents and failures, 
who crowd every field of effort, we shall have 
but little to say, for to " Win Success " is our 
watchword. 

What a great number of paths the observant 
young man sees before him ! Which shall he 
pursue to find it ending in victory? Victory 
when the curtain falls on this brief life, and a 



1 6 How to Get on in the World. 

greater victory when the death-valley is crossed 
and the life eternal begins ? 

The learned professions have widened in their 
scope and number within the past thirty years. 
To divinity, law, and medicine, we can now add 
literature, journalism, engineering and all the 
sciences. Even art, as generally understood, is 
now spoken of as a profession, and there are 
professors to teach its many branches in all the 
great universities. Any one of these professions, 
if carefully mastered and diligently pursued, 
promises fame, and, if not fortune, certainly a 
competency, for the calling that does not furnish 
a competency for a man and his family, can 
hardly be called a success, no matter the degree 
of fame it brings. 

"Since Adam delved and Eve span," agri- 
culture has been the principal occupation of 
civilized man. With the advance of chemistry, 
particularly that branch known as agricultural 
chemistry, farming has become more of a 
science, and its successful pursuit demands not 
only unceasing industry, but a high degree of 
trained intelligence. Of late years farming has 
rather fallen into disrepute with ambitious 
young men, who long for the excitement and 
greater opportunities afforded by our cities ; but 
success and happiness have been achieved in 
farming, and the opportunities for both will in- 
crease with proper training and a correct appre- 
ciation of a farmer's life. 

" Business" is a very comprehensive word, 
and may properly embrace every life-calling; 



What is Success f 17 

but in its narrow acceptance it is applied to 
trade, commerce and manufactures. It is in 
these three lines of business that men have 
shown the greatest energy and enterprise, and 
in which they have accomplished the greatest 
material success. As a consequence, eager 
spirits enter these fields, encouraged by the ex- 
amples of men who from small beginnings, and 
in the face of obstacles that would have daunted 
less resolute men, became merchant princes and 
the peers of earth's greatest. 

In the selection of your calling do not stand 
hesitating and doubting too long. Enter some- 
where, no matter how hard or uncongenial 
the work, do it with all your might, and the 
effort will strengthen you and qualify you to 
find work that is more in accord with your 
talents. 

Bear in mind that the first condition of 
success in every calling, is earnest devotion to 
its requirements and duties. This may seem 
so obvious a remark that it is hardly worth 
making. And yet, with all its obviousness the 
thing itself is often forgotten by the young. 
They are frequently loth to admit the extent 
and urgency of business claims ; and they try 
to combine with these claims, devotion to some 
favorite, and even it may be conflicting, pursuit. 
Such a policy invariably fails. We cannot 
travel every path. Success must be won along 
one line. You must make your business the 
one life purpose to which every other, save 
religion, must be subordinate. 



18 How to Get on in the World. 

" Eternal vigilance " it has been said, " is the 
price of liberty." With equal truth it may be 
^aid, " Unceasing effort is the price of success." 
If we do not work with our might, others 
will ; and they will outstrip us in the race, and 
pluck the prize from our grasp. " The race is 
not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong," in the race of business or in the battle 
of professional life, but usually the swiftest wins 
the prize, and the strongest gains in the strife. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER. 

That " Heaven helps those who help them- 
selves," is a maxim as true as it is ancient. 
The great and indispensable help to success 
is character. 

Character is crystallized habit, the result of 
training and conviction. Every character is 
influenced by heredity, environment and educa- 
tion ; but these apart, if every man were not to 
a great extent the architect of his own character, 
he would be a fatalist, an irresponsible creature 
of circumstances, which, even the sceptic must 
confess he is not. So long as a man has the 
power to change one habit, good or bad, for 
another, so long he is responsible for his own 
character, and this responsibility continues with 
life and reason. 

A man may be a graduate of the greatest 
university, and even a great genius, and yet be 
a most despicable character. Neither Peter 
Cooper, George Peabody nor Andrew Carnegie 
had the advantage of a college education, yet 
character made them the world's benefactors 
and more honored than princes. 

" You insist, " wrote Perthes to a friend, " on 

respect for learned men. I say, Amen ! But 

at the same time, don't forget that largeness of 

mind, depth of thought, appreciation of the 

19 



20 How to Get on in the World. 

lofty, experience of the world, delicacy of man- 
ner, tact and energy in action, love of truth^ 
honesty, and amiability — that all these may be 
wanting in a man who may yet be very learned." 

When some one in Sir Walter Scott's hearing 
made a remark as to the value of literary 
talents and accomplishments, as if they were 
above all things to be esteemed and honored, 
he observed, " God help ns ! what a poor world 
this would be if that were the true doctrine ! 
I have read books enough, and observed and 
conversed with enough of eminent and splen- 
didly-cultured minds, too, in my time ; but T 
assure you, I have heard higher sentiments from 
the lips of the poor uneducated men and women, 
when exerting the spirit of severe, yet gentle 
heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or 
speaking their simple thoughts as to circum- 
stances in the lot of friends and neighbors, than 
I ever yet met with out of the Bible." 

In the affairs of life or of business, it is not 
intellect that tells so much as character — not 
brains so much as heart — not genius so much as 
self-control, patience, and discipline, regulated 
by judgment. Hence there is no better provi- 
sion for the uses of either private or public life, 
than a fair share of ordinary good sense guided 
by rectitude. Good sense, disciplined by ex- 
perience and inspired by goodness, issues in 
practical wisdom. Indeed, goodness in a 
measure implies wisdom — the highest wisdom — 
the union of the worldly with the spiritual. 
" The correspondences of wisdom and goodness," 



The Importance of Character. 21 

says Sir Henry Taylor, " are manifold ; and 
that they will accompany each other is to be 
inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes 
them good, but because their goodness makes 
them wise." 

The best sort of character, however, can not 
be formed without effort. There needs the 
exercise of constant self- watchfulness, self-dis- 
cipline, and self-control. There may be much 
faltering, stumbling, and temporary defeat ; 
difficulties and temptations manifold to be 
battled with and overcome ; but if the spirit 
be strong and the heart be upright, no one need 
despair of ultimate success. The very effort to 
advance — to arrive at a higher standard of 
character than we have reached — is inspiring 
and invigorating ; and even though we may fall 
short of it, we can not fail to be improved by 
every honest effort made in an upward direction. 

" Instead of saying that man is the creature of 
circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to 
say that man is the architect of circumstance. 
It is character which builds an existence out of 
circumstance. Our strength is measured by our 
plastic power. From the same materials one 
man builds palaces, another hovels ; one ware- 
houses, another villas. Bricks and mortar are 
mortar and bricks, until the architect can make 
them something else. Thus it is that in the 
same family, in the same circumstances, one 
man rears a stately edifice, while his brother, 
vacillating and incompetent, lives forever amid 
ruins ; the block of granite which was aa 



22 How to Get 07i i?i the World. 

obstacle on the pathway of the weak, becomes 
a stepping-stone on the pathway of the strong." 

When the elements of character are brought 
into action by determinate will, and influenced 
by high purpose, man enters upon and cour- 
ageously perseveres in the path of duty, at what- 
ever cost of worldly interest, he may be said to 
approach the summit of his being. He then 
exhibits character in its most intrepid form, 
and embodies the highest idea of manliness. 
The acts of such a man become repeated in the 
life and action of others. His very words live 
and become actions. Thus every word of 
Luther's rang through Germany like a trumpet. 
As Richter said of him, " His words were half- 
battles." And thus Luther's life became trans- 
fused into the life of his country, and still lives 
in the character of modern Germany. 

Speaking of the courageous character of John 
Knox, Carlyle says, with characteristic force : 
" Honor to all the brave and true ; everlasting 
honor to John Knox, one of the truest of the 
true ! That, in the moment while he and his 
cause, amid civil broils, in convulsion and con- 
fusion, were still but struggling for life, he sent 
the school-master forth to all corners, and said, 
' Let the people be taught ; ' this is but one, and, 
indeed, an inevitable and comparatively incon- 
siderable item in his great message to men. 
This message, in its true compass, was, 'Let 
men know that they are men ; created by God, 
responsible to God ; whose work in any meanest 
moment of time what will last through eternity.' 



The Importance of Character. 23 

. . . This great message Knox did deliver, with 
a man's voice and strength, and found a people 
to believe him. Of such an achievement, were 
it to be made once only, the results are immense. 
Thought, in such a country, may change its 
form, but cannot go out ; the country has 
attained majority; thought, and a certain 
spiritual manhood, ready for all work that man 
can do, endures there. The Scotch national 
character originated in many circumstances ; 
first of all, in the Saxon stuff there was to work 
on ; but next, and beyond all else except that, 
in the Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox." 

Washington left behind him, as one of the 
greatest treasures of his country, the example 
of a stainless life — of a great, honest, pure, and 
noble character — a model for his nation to form 
themselves by in all time to come. And in the 
case of Washington, as in so many other great 
leaders of men, his greatness did not so much 
consist in his intellect, his skill and his genius, 
as in his honor, his integrity, his truthfulness, 
his high and controlling sense of duty — in a 
word, in his genuine nobility of character. 

Men such as these are the true life-blood of 
the country to which they belong. They elevate 
and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and shed 
a glory over it by the example of life and char- 
acter which they have bequeathed. "The 
names and memories of great men," says an 
able writer, " are the dowry of a nation. 
Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even slavery 
cannot take away from her this sacred inheri- 



24 How to Get on in the World. 

tance. . . . Whenever national life begins to 
quicken .... the dead heroes rise in the 
memories of men, and appear to the living to 
stand by in solemn spectatorship and approval. 
No country can be lost which feels herself over- 
looked by such glorious witnesses. They are 
the salt of the earth, in death as well as in life. 
What they did once, their descendants have 
still and always a right to do after them ; and 
their example lives in their country, a continual 
stimulant and encouragement for him who has 
the soul to adopt it." 

It would be well for every young man, eager 
for success and anxious to form a character that 
will achieve it, to commit to memory the advice 
of Bishop Middleton : 

Persevere against discouragements. 

Keep your temper. 

Employ leisure in study, and always have 
some work in hand. 

Be punctual and methodical in business, and 
never procrastinate. 

Never be in a hurry. 

Preserve self-possession, and do not be talked 
out of a conviction. 

Kise early, and be an economist of time. 

Maintain dignity without the appearance of 
pride ; manner is something with everybody, 
and everything with some. 

Be guarded in discourse, attentive, and slow 
to speak. 

Never acquiesce in immoral or pernieious 
opinions. 



The Importance of Character. 25 

Be not forward to assign reasons to those who 
have no right to ask. 

Think nothing in conduct unimportant or in- 
different. 

Kather set than follow examples. 

Practice strict temperance ; and in all your 
transactions remember the final account. 



CHAPTER in. 

HOME INFLUENCES. 

" A careful preparation is half the battle." 
Everything depends on a good start and the 
right road. To retrace one's steps is to lose not 
only time but confidence. " Be sure you are 
right then go ahead " was the motto of the 
famous frontiersman, Davy Crockett, and it is 
one that every young man can adopt with 
safety. 

Bear in mind there is often a great distinc- 
tion between character and reputation. Repu- 
tation is what the world believes us for 
the time; character is what we truly are. 
Reputation and character may be in harmony, 
but they frequently are as opposite as light and 
darkness. Many a scoundrel has had a repu- 
tation for nobility, and men of the noblest 
characters have had reputations that relegated 
them to the ranks of the depraved, in their day 
and generation. 

It is most desirable to have a good reputa- 
tion. The good opinion of our associates and 
acquaintances is not to be despised, but every 
man should see to it that the reputation is 
deserved, otherwise his life is false, and sooner or 
later he will stand discovered before the world. 

Sudden success makes reputation, as it is said 
to make friends ; but very often adversity is the 
best test of character as it is of friendship. 
26 



Home Influences. 27 

It is the principle for which the soldier 
fights that makes him a hero, not necessarily 
his success. It is the motive that ennobles all 
effort. Selfishness may prosper, but it cannot 
win the enduring success that is based on the 
character with a noble purpose behind it. 
This purpose is one of the guards in times of 
trouble and the reason for rejoicing in the day 
of triumph. 

" Why should I toil and slave/ 5 many a 
young man has asked, " when I have only my- 
self to live for ? " God help the man who has 
neither mother, sister nor wife to struggle for 
and who does not feel that toil and the build- 
ing up of character bring their own reward. 

The home feeling should be encouraged for 
it is one of the greatest incentives to effort. If 
the young man have not parents or brothers 
and sisters to keep, or if he find himself limited 
in his leisure hours to the room of a boarding 
house, then if he can at all afford it, he should 
marry a help-meet and found a home of his 
own. u I was very poor at the time," said a 
great New York publisher, "but regarding it 
simply from a business standpoint, the best 
move I ever made in my life was to get mar- 
ried. Instead of increasing my expenses, as I 
feared, I took a most valuable partner into the 
business, and she not only made a home for me, 
but she surrendered to me her well-earned 
share of the profits." 

A wise marriage is most assuredly an influ- 
ence that helps. Every young man who loves 



28 How to Get on in the World. 

his mother, if living, or reveres her memory if 
dead, must recall with feelings of holy emotion, 
his own home. Blest, indeed is he, over whom 
the influence of a good home continues. 

Home is the first and most important school 
of character. It is there that every civilized 
being receives his best moral training, or his 
worst; for it is there that he imbibes those 
principles that endure through manhood and 
cease only with life. 

It is a common saying that " Manners make 
the man ; " and there is a second, that " Mind 
makes the man ; " but truer than either is a 
third, that " Home makes the man." For the 
home-training not only includes manners and 
mind, but character. It is mainly in the home 
that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, 
the intellect is awakened, and character 
moulded for good or for evil. 

From that source, be it pure or impure, issue 
the principles and maxims that govern society. 
Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The 
tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of 
children in private life afterward issue forth to 
the world, and become its public opinion ; for 
nations are gathered out of nurseries, and they 
who hold the leading strings of children may 
even exercise a greater power than those who 
wield the reins of government. 

It is in the order of nature that domestic life 
ehould be preparatory to social, and that the 
mind and character should first be formed in 
the home. There the individuals who after- 



Home Influences. 29 

ward form society are dealt ^vith in detail, 
and fashioned one by one. From the family 
they enter life, and advance from boyhood to 
citizenship. Thus the home may be regarded 
as the most influential school of civilization. 
For, after all, civilization mainly resolves itself 
into a question of individual training ; and ac- 
cording as the respective members of society 
are well or ill trained in youth, so will the 
community which they constitute be more or 
less humanized and civilized. 

Thus homes, which are the nurseries of chil- 
dren who grow up into men and women, will be 
good or bad according to the power that gov- 
erns them. Where the spirit of love and duty 
pervades the home — where head and heart bear 
rule wisely there — where the daily life is hon- 
est and virtuous — where the government is sen- 
sible, kind and loving, then may we expect 
from such a home an issue of healthy, useful, 
and happy beings, capable, as they gain the 
requisite strength of following the footsteps of 
their parents, of walking uprightly, governing 
themselves wisely, and contributing to the wel- 
fare of those about them. 

On the other hand, if surrounded by ignor- 
ance, coarseness, and selfishness, they will un- 
consciously assume the same character, and 
grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and 
all the more dangerous to society if placed 
amidst the manifold temptations of w r hat is 
called civilized life. " Give your child to be 
educated by a slave/ ' said an ancient Greek, 



30 How to Get on i?i the World. 

" and, instead of one slave, you will then have 
two." 

The child cannot help imitating what he 
sees. Everything is to him a model — of man- 
ner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of charac- 
ter. "For the child," says Richter, "the most 
important era of life is childhood, when he be- 
gins to color and mould himself by companion- 
ship with others. Every new educator effects 
less than , his predecessor ; until at last, if we 
regard all life as an educational institution, a 
circumnavigator of the world is less influenced 
by all the nations he has seen than by his- 
nurse." 

No man can select his parents or make for 
himself the early environment that affects char- 
acter so powerfully, but he can found a home 
no matter how humble, at the outset, that will 
make his own future secure, as well as the future 
of those for whose existence he is responsible. 

The poorest dwelling, presided over by a vir- 
tuous, thrifty, cheerful, and cleanly woman, 
may be the abode of comfort, virtue, and hap- 
piness ; it may be the scene of every ennobling 
relation in family life ; it may be endeared to a 
man by many delightful associations ; furnish- 
ing a sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from the 
storms of life, a sweet resting-place after labor, 
a consolation in misfortune, a pride in prosperity, 
and a joy at all times. 

The good home is the best of schools, not 
only in youth but in age. There young and 
©Id best learn cheerfulness, patience, self-con- 



Home Influences. 31 

trol and the spirit of service and of duty. 
Izaak Walton, speaking of George Herbert's 
mother, says she governed the family with 
judicious care, not rigidly nor sourly, " but 
with such a sweetness and compliance with the 
recreations and pleasures of youth, as did in- 
cline them to spend much of their time in her 
company, which was to her great content." 

The home is the true school of courtesy, oi 
which woman is always the best practical 
instructor. " Without woman," says the Pro- 
vencal proverb " men were but ill-licked cubs." 
Philanthropy radiates from the home as from a 
centre. "To love the little platoon we belong- 
to in society," said Burke " is the germ of all 
public affections." The wisest and the best 
have not been ashamed to own it to be their 
greatest joy and happiness to sit " behind the 
heads of the children " in the inviolable circle 
of home. A life of purity and duty there is 
not the least effectual preparative for a life of 
public work and duty ; and the man who loves 
his home will not the less fondly love and 
serve his country. 

At an address before a girls' school in Boston, 
ex-President John Quincy Adams, then an 
old man, said with much feeling : " As a child 
I enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that 
can be bestowed upon man — that of a mother 
who was anxious and capable to form the 
characters of her children rightly. From her 
I derived whatever instruction (religious espe- 
cially and moral) has pervaded a long life — I 



$2 How to Get on in the World. 

will not say perfectly, or as it ought to be ; but 
I will say, because it is only justice to the mem- 
ory of her I revere, that in the course of that 
life, whatever imperfection there has been 
or deviation from what she taught me, the 
fault is mine and not hers." 

So much depends on the home, for it is the 
-corner-stone of society and good government, 
that it is to be regretted, for the sake of young 
women, as well as of young men, that our modern 
life offers so many opportunities to neglect it. 

As the home affects the character entirely 
through the associations, it follows that the 
young man who has left his home behind him 
should continue the associations whose memories 
comfort him. He should never go to a place 
for recreation where he would not be willing 
and proud to take his mother on his arm. He 
should never have as friends men to whom he 
would not be willing, if need be, to introduce 
his sister. 

These are among the influences that help to 
success. But association is a matter of such 
great importance as to deserve fuller treatment. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ASSOCIATION. 

The old proverb, " Tell me your company and 
I will tell you what you are," is as true to-day 
as when first uttered. In the preparation for 
success, association is one of the most powerful 
factors, so powerful, indeed, that if the associa- 
tions are not of the right kind, failure is 
inevitable. 

As one diseased sheep may contaminate a 
flock, so one evil associate — particularly if he 
be daring, may seriously injure the morals of 
many. Every young man can recall the evil 
influence of one bad boy on a whole school, 
but he cannot so readily point to the school- 
mate, whose example and influence were for 
good ; because goodness, though more potent, 
never makes itself so conspicuous as vice. 

Criminals, preparing for the scaffold, have 
confessed that their entrance into a life of crime 
began in early youth, when the audacity of 
some unprincipled associate tempted them from 
the ways of innocence. Through all the years 
of life, even to old age, the life and character 
are influenced by association. If this be true- 
in the case of the more mature and experienced^ 
its force is intensified where the young, imagi- 
native and susceptible, are concerned. 

Man is said to be " an imitative animal/ 5 * 
This is certainly true as to early education, and 
33 



34 How to Get on in the World. 

the tendency to imitate remains to a greater or 
less extent throughout life. Imitation is respon- 
sible for all the queer changes of fashion ; and 
the desire to be " in the swim," as it is called, 
is entirely due to association. 

In school days, the influence of a good home 
may counteract the effect of evil associates, 
whom the boy meets occasionally, but when the 
boy has grown to manhood, and finds himself 
battling with the world, away from home and 
well-tried friends, it is then that he is in the 
greatest danger from pernicious associates. 

The young man who comes to the city to 
seek his fortune is more apt to be the victim of 
vile associates than the city raised youth whose 
experience of men is larger, and who is fortunate 
in his companionship. The farmer's son, who 
finds himself for the first time in a great city — 
alone and comparatively friendless, appears to 
himself to have entered a new world, as in truth 
he has. The crowds of hurrying, well-dressed 
people impress him forcibly as compared with 
his own clumsy gait, and roughly clad figure. 
The noise confuses him. The bustle of commerce 
amazes him ; and for the time he is as desolate 
in feeling as if he were in the centre of a desert, 
instead of in the throbbing heart of a great 
city. 

No matter how blessed with physical and 
mental strength the young man may be, under 
these circumstances he is very apt, for the time 
at least, to under-estimate his own strength. 
He is powerfully impressed by what he deems 



e> 



Association. 35 

the smartness or the superior manners of those 
whom he meets in his boarding house, or with 
whom he is associated in his business, say in a 
great mercantile establishment. It requires a 
great deal of moral courage for him to bear in a 
manly way the ridicule, covert or open, of the 
companions who regard him as a " hay-seed " 
or a " greenhorn. " His Sunday clothes, which 
he wore with pride when he attended meeting 
with his mother, he is apt to regard with a feel- 
ing of mortification ; and, perhaps, he secretly 
determines to dress as well as do his companions 
when he has saved enough money. 

This is a crucial period in the life of every 
young man who is entering on a business career, 
and particularly so to him coming from the 
rural regions. He finds, perhaps, that his asso- 
ciates smoke or drink, or both ; things which 
he has hitherto regarded with horror. He finds, 
too, they are in the habit of resorting to places 
of amusement, the splendor and mysteries of 
which arouse his curiosity, if not envy, as he 
hears them discussed. 

Before leaving home, and while his mother's 
arms were still about him, he promised her to be 
moral and industrious, to write regularly, and 
to do nothing which she would not approve. 
If he had the right stuff in him, he would adhere 
manfully to the resolution made at the begin- 
ning ; but, if he be weak or is tempted by false 
pride, or a prurient curiosity to " see the town," 
he is tottering on the edge of a precipice and 
Ids failure, if not sudden, is sure to come in time. 



36 How to Get on in the World. 

Cities are represented to be centres of vice, 
and it cannot be denied that the temptations 
in such places are much greater than on a farm 
or in a quiet country village, but at the same 
time, cities are centres of wealth and cultiva- 
tion, places where philanthropy is alive and 
where organized effort has provided places of 
instruction and amusement for all young men, 
but particularly for that large class of youths 
who come from the country to seek their 
fortunes. Churches abound, and in connection 
with them there are societies of young people, 
organized for good work, which are ever ready, 
with open arms, to welcome the young stranger. 
Then, in all our cities and townB, there are to 
be found, branches of that most admirable 
institution, the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion. Not only are there companions to be met 
in these associations of the very best kind, but 
the buildings are usually fitted up with 
appliances for the improvement of mind and 
body. Here are gymnasiums, where strength 
and grace can be cultivated under the direction 
of competent teachers. Here are to be found 
well organized libraries. Here, particularly in 
the winter season, there are classes where all 
the branches of a high school are taught ; and 
there are frequent lectures on all subjects of 
interest by the foremost teachers of the land. 

If the young man falls under these influences,, 
and he will experience not the slightest difficulty 
in doing so ; indeed, he will find friendly hands 
extended to welcome and to help, the result 01* 



Association, 



37 



his character must be most beneficial. The 
clumsiness of rural life will soon depart; he 
will regard his home-made suit with as much 
pleasure as if it were made by a fashionable 
tailor, and he will soon learn to distinguish 
between the vicious and the virtuous, while he 
imitates the one and regards the other with in- 
difference or contempt. 

Next to the association of companions met in 
every day life nothing so powerfully influences 
the character of the young as association with 
good books, particularly those that relate to the 
lives of men who have struggled up to honor 
from small beginnings. 

With such associations, and a capacity for 
honest persistent work, success is assured at the 
very threshold of effort. 



CHAPTER V. 

COURAGE AND DETERMINED EFFORT. 

Carlyle has said that the first requisite to 
success is carefully to find your life work and 
then bravely to carry it out. No soldier ever 
won a succession of triumphs, and no business 
man, no matter how successful in the end, who 
did not find his beginning slow, arduous and 
discouraging. Courage is a prime essential to 
prosperity. The young man's progress may be 
slow in comparison with his ambition, but if he 
keeps a brave heart and sticks persistently to 
it, he will surely succeed in the end. 

The forceful, energetic character, like the 
forceful soldier on the battle-field, not only 
moves forward to victory himself, buthisexamplt 
has a stimulating influence on others. 

Energy of character has always a power to 
evoke energy in others. It acts through sym- 
pathy, one of the most influential of human 
agencies. The zealous, energetic man uncon- 
sciously carries others along with him. His ex- 
ample is contagious and compels imitation. 
He exercises a sort of electric power, which 
sends a thrill through every fibre, flows into 
the nature of those about him, and makes them 
give out sparks of fire. 

Dr. Arnold's biographer, speaking of the 
power of this kind exercised by him over 
young men, says : " It was not so much an 
^8 



Courage and Determined Effort. 39 

enthusiastic admiration for true genius, or 
learning, or eloquence, which stirred the heart 
within them ; it was a sympathetic thrill, 
caught from a spirit that was earnestly at work 
in the world — whose work was healthy, sus- 
tained and constantly carried forward in the 
fear of God- — a work that was founded on a 
deep sense of its duty and its value. " 

The beginner should carefully study the 
lives of men whose undaunted courage has 
won in the face of obstacles that would cow 
weaker natures. 

It is in the season of youth, while the char- 
acter is forming, that the impulse to admire is 
the greatest. As we advance in life we crystal- 
lize into habit and " Nil admirari " too often 
becomes our motto. It is well to encourage 
the admiration of great characters while the 
nature is plastic and open to impressions ; for if 
the good are not admired — as young men will 
have their heroes of some sort — most probably 
the great bad may be taken by them for mod- 
els. Hence it always rejoiced Dr. Arnold to 
hear his pupils expressing admiration of great 
deeds, or full of enthusiasm for persons or even 
tcenery. 

" I believe," said he, " that ( Nil admirari ' is 
the devil's favorite text; and he cculd not choose 
a better to introduce his pupils into the more 
esoteric parts of his doctrine. And therefore I 
have always looked upon a man infected with 
the disorder of anti-romance as one who has 
lost the finest part of his nature and his best 
protection against everything low and foolish.' ' 



... 

40 How to Get on in the World, 

Great men have evoked the admiration of 
kings, popes and emperors. Francis de Medi- 
cis never spoke to Michael Angelo without 
uncovering, and Julius III. made him sit by 
his side while a dozen cardinals were standing. 
Charles V. made way for Titian ; and one day 
when the brush dropped from the painter's 
hand, Charles stooped and picked it up, saying, 
" You deserve to be served by an emperor." 

Bear in mind that nothing so discourages or 
unfits a man for an effort as idleness. " Idleness," 
says Burton, in that delightful old book " The 
Anatomy of Melancholy," "is the bane of 
body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the 
chief mother of all mischief, one of the seven 
deadly sins, the devil's cushion, his pillow and 
chief reposal. . . An idle dog will be mangy ; 
and how shall an idle person escape ? Idleness 
of the mind is much worse than that of the 
body ; wit, without employment, is a disease — 
the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself. As 
in a standing pool, worms and filthy creepers 
increase, so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an 
idle person ; the soul is contaminated. . . Thus 
much I dare boldly say : he or she that is idle, 
be they of what condition they will, never so 
rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy — let them 
have all things in abundance, all felicity that 
heart can wish and desire, all contentment — so 
long as he, or she, or they, are idle, they shall 
never be pleased, never well in body or mind, 
but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing 
still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, 



Courage and Determined Effort. 41 

offended with the world, with every object, 
wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried 
away with some foolish fantasie or other." 

Burton says a great deal more to the same 
effect. 

It has been truly said that to desire to pos- 
sess without being burdened by the trouble of 
acquiring is as much a sign of weakness as to 
recognize that everything worth having is only 
to be got by paying its price is the prime secret 
of practical strength. Even leisure cannot be 
enjoyed unless it is won by effort. If it have 
not been earned by work, the price has not been 
paid for it. 

But apart from the supreme satisfaction of 
winning, the effort required to accomplish any- 
thing is ennobling, and, if there were no 
other success it would be its own reward. 

" I don't believe/' said Lord Stanley, in an 
address to the young men of Glasgow, " that an 
unemployed man, however amiable and other- 
wise respectable, ever was, or ever can be, 
really happy. As work is our life, show me 
what you can do, and I will show you what 
you are. I have spoken of love of one's work 
as the best preventive of merely low and 
vicious tastes. I will go farther and say that 
it is the best preservative against petty anx- 
ieties and the annoyances that arise out of 
indulged self-love. Men have thought before 
now that they could take refuge from trouble 
and vexation by sheltering themselves, as it 
were, in a world of their own. The experi- 



42 How to Get on in the World. 

ment has often been tried and always with one 
result. You cannot escape from anxiety or 
labor — it is the destiny of humanity. . . Those 
who shirk from facing trouble find that trouble 
comes to them. 

" The early teachers of Christianity ennobled 
the lot of toil by their example. * He that 
will not work/ said St. Paul, ' neither shall 
he eat;' and he glorified himself in that he 
had labored with his hands and had not been 
chargeable to anv man. When St. Boniface 
landed in Britain, he came with a gospel in one 
hand, and a carpenter's rule in the other; and 
from England he afterward passed over into 
Germany, carrying thither the art of building. 
Luther also, in the midst of a multitude of 
other employments, worked diligently for a 
living, earning his bread by gardening, build- 
ing, turning, and even clock-making. ,, 

Coleridge has truly observed, that " if the 
idle are described as killing time, the method- 
ical man may be justly said to call it into life 
and moral being, while he makes it the distinct 
object, not only of the consciousness, but of the 
conscience. He organizes the hours and gives 
them a soul ; and by that, the very essence of 
which is to fleet and to have been, he commun- 
icates an imperishable and spiritual nature. 
Of the good and faithful servant, whose ener- 
gies thus directed are thus methodized, it is less 
truly affirmed that he lives in time than that 
time lives in him. His days and months and 
years, as the stops and punctual marks in the 



Cow-age and Determined Ejfort. 43. 

record of duties performed, will survive the 
wreck of worlds, and remain extant when time 
itself shall be no more." 

Washington, also, was an indefatigable man 
of business. From his boyhood he diligently 
trained himself in habits of application, of 
study and of methodical work. His manu- 
script school-books, which are still preserved, 
show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he 
occupied himself voluntarily, in copying out 
such things as forms of receipts, notes of hand, 
bills of exchange, bonds, indentures, leases, land- 
warrants and other dry documents, all written 
out with great care. And the habits which he 
thus early acquired were, in a great measure the 
foundation of those admirable business qualities 
which he afterward so successfully brought to 
bear in the affairs of the government. 

The man or woman who achieves success in 
the management of any great affair of busi- 
ness is entitled to honor — it may be, to as much 
as the artist who paints a picture, or the author 
who writes a book, or the soldier who wins a bat- 
tle. Their success may have been gained in the 
face of as great difficulties, and after as great 
struggles; and where they have won their 
battle it is at least a peaceful one and there is 
no blood on their hands. 

Courage, combined with energy and perse- 
verance, will overcome difficulties apparently 
insurmountable. It gives force and impulse to 
effort and does not permit it to retreat. Tyn- 
dall said of Faraday, that "in his warm 



44 How to Get on in the World. 

moments he formed a resolution and in his cool 
ones he made that resolution good." Persever- 
ance, working in the right direction, grows 
with time and when steadily practiced, even by 
the most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. 
Trusting in the help of others is of compara- 
tively little use. When one of Michael Angelo'a 
principal patrons died, he said : " I begin to un- 
derstand the promises of the world are for the 
most part vain phantoms and that to confide in 
one's self and become something of worth and 
value is the best and safest course. " 

It ought to be a first principle, in beginning 
life to do with earnestness what we have got to 
do. If it is worth doing at all, it is worth 
doing earnestly. If it is to be done well at all 
it must be done with purpose and devotion. 

Whatever may be our profession, let us mark 
all its bearings and details, its principles, its 
instruments, its applications. There is nothing 
about it should escape our study. There is noth- 
ingin it either too high or too low for our obser- 
vation and knowledge. While we remain ignor- 
ant of any part of it, we are so far crippled in 
its use ; we are liable to be taken at a disad- 
vantage. This may be the very point the 
knowledge of which is most needed in some 
crisis, and those versed in it will take the lead, 
while we must be content to follow at a dis- 
tance. 

Our business, in short, must be the main 
drain of our intellectual activities day by day. 
It is the channel we have chosen for them ; 



Courage and Determined Effort. 45 

they must follow in it with a diffusive energy, 
filling every nook and corner. This is a fair 
test of professional earnestness. When we 
find our thoughts running after our business, 
and fixing themselves with a familiar fondness 
upon its details, we may be pretty sure of our 
way. When we find them running elsewhere 
and only resorting with difficulty to the channel 
prepared for them, we may be equally sure we 
have taken a wrong turn. We cannot be earnest 
about anything which does not naturally and 
strongly engage our thoughts. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRECT HABITS. 

As has been stated, habit is the basis of 
character. Habit is the persistent repetition 
of acts physical, mental, and moral. No matter 
how much thought and ability a young man 
may have, failure is sure to follow bad habits. 

While correct habits depend largely on self- 
discipline, and often on self-denial, bad habits, 
like pernicious weeds, spring up unaided and 
untrained to choke out the plants of virtue. It 
is easy to destroy the seed at the beginning, but 
its growth is so rapid, that its evil effects may 
nut be perceptible till the roots have sapped 
every desirable plant about it. 

No sane youth ever started out with the 
resolve to be a thief, a tramp, or a drunkard. 
Yet it is the slightest deviation from honesty 
that makes the first. It is the first neglect of 
a duty that makes the second. And it is the 
first intoxicating glass that makes the third. 
It is so easy not to begin, but the habit once 
formed and the man is a slave, bound with 
galling, cankering chains, and the strength of 
will having been destroyed, only God's mercy 
can cast them off. 

Next to the moral habits that are the corner- 
stone of every worthy character, the habit of 
industry should be ranked. In " this day and 
generation," there is a wild desire on the part 
46 



The Importance of Correct Habits, $7 

of young men to leap into fortune at a bound ? 
to reach the top of the ladder of success with- 
out carefully climbing the rounds, but no per- 
manent prosperity was ever gained in this way. 

There have been men, who through chance, 
or that form of speculation that is legalized 
gambling, have made sudden fortunes ; but as 
a rule these fortunes have been lost in the effort 
to double them by the quick and speculative 
process. 

Betters and gamblers usually die poor. But 
even where young men have made a lucky 
stroke, the result is too often a misfortune. 
They neglect the necessary, persistent effort. 
The habit of industry is ignored. Work be- 
comes distasteful, and the life is wrecked, look- 
ing for chances that never come. 

There have been exceptional cases, where 
men of immoral habits, but with mental force 
and unusual opportunities have won fortunes. 
Some of these will come to the reader's mind at 
once, but he will be forced to confess that he 
would not give up his manhood and compara- 
tive poverty, in exchange for such material 
success. 

The best equipment a young man can have 
for the battle of life is a conscience void of 
offence, sound common sense, and good health. 
Too much importance cannot be attached to 
health. It is a blessing we do not prize till it is 
gone. Some are naturally delicate and some 
are naturally strong, but by habit the health of 
the vigorous may be ruined, and by opposite 



48 How to Get on in the World. 

habits the delicate may be made healthful and 
strong. 

No matter the prospects and promises of over- 
work, it is a species of suicide to continue it at 
the expense of health. Good men in every 
department and calling, stimulated by zeal 
and an ambition commendable in itself, have 
worked till the vital forces were exhausted, and 
so were compelled to stop all effort in the prime 
of life and on the threshold of success. 

The best preservers of health are regularity in 
correct hygienic habits, and strict temperance. 
Alexander Stephens, of Georgia, it is said con- 
tracted consumption when a child, and his 
friends did not believe he would live to man- 
hood, yet by correct habits, he not only lived 
the allotted time of the Psalmist, but he did an 
amount of work that would have been impossi- 
ble to a much stronger man, without his method 
of life. 

It should not be forgotten that good health is 
quite as much dependent on mental as on 
physical habits. Worry, sensitiveness, and 
temper have hastened to the grave many an 
otherwise splendid character. 

The man of business must needs be subject 
to strict rule and system. Business, like life, is 
managed by moral leverage ; success in both 
depending in no small degree upon that regula- 
tion of temper and careful self-discipline, which 
give a wise man not only a command over him- 
self, but over others. Forbearance and self- 
control smooth the road of life, and open many 



The Importance of Correct Habits. 49 

ways which would otherwise remain closed. 
And so does self-respect ; for as men respect 
themselves, so will they usually, respect the per- 
sonality of others. 

It is the same in politics as in business. 
Success in that sphere of life is achieved less 
by talent than by temper, less by genius than 
by character. If a man have not self-control,. 
he will lack patience, be wanting in tact, and 
have neither the power of governing himself 
nor managing others. When the quality most 
needed in a prime minister was the subject of 
conversation in the presence of Mr. Pitt, one of 
the speakers said it was " eloquence ; " another 
said it was " knowledge ; " and a third said it 
was " toil." " No," said Pitt, " it is patience ! " 
And patience means self-control, a quality in 
which he himself was superb. His friend 
George Rose has said of him that he never once 
saw Pitt out of temper. 

A strong temper is not necessarily a bad 
temper. But the stronger the temper, the 
greater is the need of self-discipline and self- 
control. Dr. Johnson says men grow better as 
they grow older, and improve with experience ; 
but this depends upon the width and depth and 
generousness of their nature. It is not men's 
faults that ruin them so much as the manner in 
which they conduct themselves after the faults 
have been committed. The wise will profit by 
the suffering they cause, and eschew them for 
the future ; but there are those on whom ex- 
perience exerts no ripening influence, and who 



50 How to Get on in the World. 

only grow narrower and bitterer, and more 
vicious with time. 

What is called strong temper in a young man, 
often indicates a large amount of unripe energy, 
which will expend itself in useful work if the 
road be fairly opened to it. It is said of Girard 
that when he heard of a clerk with a strong 
temper, he would readily take him into his 
employment, and set him to work in a room by 
himself; Girard being of opinion that such 
persons were the best workers, and that their 
energy would expend itself in work if removed 
from the temptation of quarrel. 

There is a great difference between a strong 
temper, " a righteous indignation," and that 
irritability that curses its possessor and all who 
come near him. 

Mr. Motley compares William the Silent to 
Washington, whom he in many respects resem- 
bled. The American, like the Dutch patriot, 
■stands out in history as the very impersonation 
of dignity, bravery, purity, and personal ex- 
cellence. His command over his feelings, even 
in moments of great difficulty and danger, was 
such as to convey the impression, to those who 
did not know him intimately, that he was a man 
of inborn calmness and almost impassiveness of ' 
disposition. Yet Washington was by nature 
ardent and impetuous ; his mildness, gentleness, 
politeness, and consideration for others, were the 
result of rigid self-control and unw r earied self- 
discipline, which he diligently practiced even 
from his boyhood. His biographer says of him, 



The Importance of Correct Habits. 51 

that " his temperament was ardent, his passions 
strong, and, amidst the multiplied scenes of 
temptation and excitement through which he 
passed, it was his constant effort, and ultimate 
triumph, to check the one and subdue the other." 
And again : " His passions were strong, and 
sometimes they broke out with vehemence, but 
he had the power of checking them in an instant. 
Perhaps self-control was the most remarkable 
trait of his character. It was in part the effect 
of discipline ; yet he seems by nature to have 
possessed this power in a degree which has been 
denied to other men." 

The Duke of Wellington's natural temper, 
like that of Napoleon, was strong in the extreme 
and it was only by watchful self-control that he 
was enabled to restrain it. He studied calmness 
and coolness in the midst of danger, like any 
Indian chief. At Waterloo, and elsewhere,, he 
gave his orders in the most critical moments 
without the slightest excitement, and in a tone 
of voice almost more than usually subdued. 

Abraham Lincoln in his early manhood was 
quick tempered and combative, but he soon 
learned self-control and, as all know, became as 
patient as he was forceful and sympathetic. 
" I got into the habit of controlling my temper 
in the Black Hawk war," he said to Colonel 
Forney, " an 1 the good habit stuck to me as bad 
habits do to so many." 

Patience is a habit that pays for its own 
cultivation and the biographies of earth's 
greatest men, prove that it was one of their most 
conspicuous characteristics. 



52 How to Get on in the World. 

One who loves right can not be indifferent to 
wrong, or wrong-doing. If he feels warmly, 
he will speak warmly, out of the fullness of his 
heart. We have, however, to be on our guard 
against impatient scorn. The best people are 
apt to have their impatient side, and often the 
very temper which makes men earnest, makes 
them also intolerant. "Of all mental gifts, 
the rarest is intellectual patience ; and the last 
lesson of culture is to believe in difficulties 
which are invisible to ourselves." 

One of Burns' finest poems, written in his 
twenty-eighth year, is entitled "A Bard's Epi- 
taph." It is a description, by anticipation, of 
his own life. Wordsworth has said of it : 
" Here is a sincere and solemn avowal ; a public 
declaration from his own will ; a confession at 
once devout, poetical, and human ; a history in 
the shape of a prophecy." It concludes with 
these lines : 

" Eeader, attend — whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole 

In low pursuit ; 
Know — prudent, cautious self-control, 
Is Wisdom's root." 

Truthfulness is quite as much a habit and 
quite as amendable to cultivation as falsehood. 
Deceit may meet with temporary success, but 
he who avails himself of it can be sure that in 
*,he end his "sin will find him out." The 



The Importance of Correct Habits, 53 

credit of the truthful, reliable man stands 
when the cash of a trickster might be doubted. 
" His word is as good as his bond," is one of 
the highest compliments that can be paid ta 
the business man. 

Be truthful not only in great things, but in 
all things. The slightest deviation from this 
habit may be the beginning of a career of du- 
plicity, ending in disgrace. 

But truthfulness, like the other virtues,, 
should not be regarded as a trade mark, a 
means to success. It brings its own reward in 
the nobility it gives the character. An excep- 
tion might be made here as to that form of 
military deceit known as "stratagem," but it is 
the duty of the enemy to expect it, and so 
guard against it. The word of a soldier involves 
his honor, and if he pledges that word, to even 
a foeman, he will keep it with his life. 

Like our own Washington, Wellington was 
a severe admirer of truth. An illustration may 
be given. When afflicted by deafness, he con- 
milted a celebrated aurist, who, after trying all 
remedies in vain, determined, as a last resource, 
to inject into the ear a strong solution of caustic. 
It caused the most intense pain, but the patient 
bore it with his usual equanimity. The family 
physician accidentally calling one day, found the 
duke with flushed cheeks and blood-shot eyes, 
and when he rose he staggered about like a 
drunken man. The doctor asked to be per- 
mitted to look at his ear, and then he found 
tliat a furious inflammation was going on ? 



54 How to Get on in the World. 

which, if not immediately checked, must shortly 
reach the brain and kill him. Vigorous reme- 
dies were at once applied, and the inflammation 
was checked. But the hearing of that ear wa* 
completely destroyed. When the aurist heard 
of the danger his patient had run, through the 
violence of the remedy he had employed, he 
hastened to Apsley House to express his grief 
and mortification ; but the duke merely said : 
41 Do not say a word more about it — you did all 
for the best." The aurist said it would be his 
ruin when it became known that he had been 
the cause of so much suffering and danger to 
his grace. " But nobody need know any thing 
about it : keep your own counsel, and, depend 
upon it, I won't say a word to any one." " Then 
your grace will allow me to attend you as usual, 
which will show the public that you have not 
withdrawn your confidence from me ? " " No," 
replied the duke, kindly but firmly ; " I can't 
do that, for that would be a lie." He would 
not act a falsehood any more than he would 
speak one. 

But lying assumes many forms — such as di- 
plomacy, expediency, and moral reservation ; 
and, under one guise or another, it is found 
more or less pervading all classes of society. 
Sometimes it assumes the form of equivocation 
or moral dodging — twisting and so stating the 
things said as to convey a false impression — a 
kind of lying which a Frenchman once de- 
scribed as " walking round about the truth." 

There are even men of narrow minds and 
dishonest natures, who pride themselves upon 



The Importance of Correct Habits. 55 

their Jesuitical cleverness in equivocation, in 
their serpent-wise shirking of the truth and 
getting out of moral back-doors, in order to 
hide their real opinions and evade the conse- 
quences of holding and openly professing them. 
Institutions or systems based upon any such 
expedients must necessarily prove false and 
hollow. " Though a lie be ever so well dressed/' 
says George Herbert, "it is ever overcome." 
Downright lying, though bolder and more 
vicious, is even less contemptible than such 
kind of shuffling and equivocation. 



CHAPTER VII. 

AS TO MARRIAGE. 

Mention has been made of the great influ- 
ence on character of the right kind of a home, 
in childhood and youth. The right kind of a 
home depends almost entirely on the right kind 
of a wife or mother. 

The old saying, " Marry in haste and repent 
at leisure/' will never lose its force. Worse 
than the man whose selfishness keeps him a 
bachelor till death, is the young man, who, 
under an impulse he imagines to be an undying 
love, marries a girl as poor, weak, and selfish 
as himself. There have been cases where mar- 
riage under such circumstances has aroused the 
man to effort and made him, particularly if 
his wife were of the same character, but these 
are so exceptional as to form no guide for peo- 
ple of average common sense. 

Again, there have been men, good men, whose 
lives measured by the ordinary standards were 
successful, who never married ; but those who 
hear or read of them, have the feeling that 
such careers were incomplete. 

The most important voluntary act of every 
man and woman's life, is marriage, and God 
has so ordained it. Hence it is an act which 
should be love-prompted on both sides, and only 
entered into after the most careful and prayer- 
ful deliberation. 

It is natural for young people of the opposite 
sex, who are much thrown together, and m 
56 



As to Marriage. 57 

become in a way essential to each other's happi- 
ness, to end by falling in love. It is said that 
" love is blind/' and the ancients so painted 
their mythological god, Cupid. It is very cer- 
tain that the fascination is not dependent on 
the will ; it is a divine, natural impulse, which 
has for its purpose the continuance of the race. 

Here, then, in all its force, we see the influ- 
ence of association, which has been already 
treated of. The young man whose associations 
are of the right kind is sure to be brought into 
contact with the good daughters of good moth- 
ers. With such association, love and marriage 
should add to life's success and happiness, pro- 
vided, always, that the husband's circumstances 
warrant him in establishing and maintaining a 
home. 

Granting, then, the right kind of a wife, and 
the ability to make a home, the young man, 
with the right kind of stuff in him, takes a 
great stride in the direction of success when he 
marries. 

No wise person will marry for beauty mainly. 
It may exercise a powerful attraction in the 
first place, but it is found to be of compara- 
tively little consequence afterward. Not that 
beauty of person is to be underestimated, for, 
ether things being equal, handsomeness of form 
and beauty of features are the outward mani- 
festations of health. But to marry a handsome 
figure without character, fine features unbeauti- 
fied by sentiment or good nature, is the most 
deplorable of mistakes. As even the finest 



58 How to Get on in the World. 

landscape, seen daily, becomes monotonous, so 
does the most beautiful face, unless a beautiful 
nature shines through it. The beauty of to-day 
becomes commonplace to-morrow ; whereas 
goodness, displayed through the most ordinary 
features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this 
kind of beauty improves with age, and time 
ripens rather than destroys it. After the first 
year, married people rarely think of each 
other's features, whether they be classically 
beautiful or otherwise. But they never fail to 
be cognizant of each other's temper. " When 
I see a man," says Addison, " with a sour, 
riveled face, I can not forbear pitying his wife ; 
and when I meet with an open, ingenuous coun- 
tenance, I think of the happiness of his friends, 
his family, and his relations." 

Edmund Burke, the greatest of English 
statesmen, was especially happy in his marriage. 
He never ceased to be a lover, and long years 
after the wedding he thus describes his wife : 

" She is handsome ; but it is a beauty not 
arising from features, from complexion, or from 
shape. She has all three in a high degree, but 
it is not by these she touches the heart ; it is all 
that sweetness of temper, benevolence, inno- 
cence, and sensibility, which a face can express, 
that forms her beauty. She has a face that 
just raises your attention at first sight ; it grows 
on you every moment, and you wonder it did 
no more than raise your attention at first. 

" Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe 
when she pleases ; they command, like a good 
man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue. 



As to Marriage. 59 

" Her stature is not tall ; she is not made to 
be the admiration of everybody, but the hap- 
piness of one. 

" She has all the firmness that does not ex- 
clude delicacy ; she has all the softness that 
does not imply weakness. 

" Her voice is a soft, low music — not formed 
to rule in public assemblies, but to charm those 
who can distinguish a company from a crowd ; 
it has this advantage — you must come close to- 
her to hear it 

" To describe her body describes her mind — 
one is the transcript of the other ; her under- 
standing is not shown in the variety of matters 
it exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the 
choice she makes. 

" She does not display it so much in saying* 
or doing striking things, as in avoiding such as 
she ought not to say or do. 

" No person of so few years can know the 
world better ; no person was ever less corrupted 
by the knowledge of it." 

A man's real character will always be more 
visible in his household than anywhere else ; 
and his practical w r isdom will be better ex- 
hibited by the manner in which he bears rule 
there than even in the larger affairs of business 
or public life. His whole mind may be in his 
business ; but, if he would be happy, his whole 
heart must be in his home. It is there that his 
genuine qualities most surely display themselves 
—there that he shows his truthfulness, his love„ 
his sympathy, his consideration for others, his 
uprightness, his manliness — in a word, his- 



60 How to Get on in the World. 

character. If affection be not the governing prin- 
ciple in a household, domestic life may be th* 
most intolerable of despotisms. Without justice, 
also, there can be neither love, confidence, nor 
respect, on which all true domestic rule is 
founded. 

It is by the regimen of domestic affection 
that the heart of man is best composed and 
regulated. The home is the woman's kingdom, 
her state, her world — where she governs by af- 
fection, by kindness, by the power of gentleness. 
There is nothing which so settles the turbulence 
of a man's nature as his union in life with a 
high-minded woman. There he finds rest, con- 
tentment, and happiness — rest of brain and 
peace of spirit. He will also often find in her 
his best counsellor, for her instinctive tact will 
usually lead him right w T hen his own unaided 
reason might be apt to go wrong. The true 
wife is a staff to lean upon in times of trial and 
^difficulty ; and she is never wanting in sym- 
pathy and solace when distress occurs or for- 
tune frowns. In the time of youth, she is a 
comfort and an ornament of man's life ; and 
she remains a faithful helpmate in maturer 
years, when life has ceased to be an anticipation, 
.and we live in its realities. 

Luther, a man full of human affection, speak- 
ing of his wife, said, " I would not exchange 
my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus 
without her." Of marriage he observed : " The 
utmost blessing that God can confer on a man 
is the possession of a good and pious wife, with 
whom he may live in peace and tranquillity — 



As to Marriage. 61 

to whom he may confide his whole possessions, 
even his life and welfare." And again he said, 
" To rise betimes, and to marry young, are what 
no man ever repents of doing." 

Some persons are disappointed in marriage, 
because they expect too much from it; but 
many more because they do not bring into the 
co-partnership their fair share of cheerfulness, 
kindliness, forbearance, and common sense. 
Their imagination has perhaps pictured a con- 
dition never experienced on this side of heaven ; 
and when real life comes, with its troubles and 
cares, there is a sudden waking-up as from a 
dream. 

We have spoken of the influence of a w T ife 
upon a man's character. There are few men 
strong enough to resist the influence of a lower 
character in a wife. If she do not sustain and 
elevate what is highest in his nature, she will 
speedily reduce him to her own level. Thus a 
wife may be the making or the unmaking of 
the best of men. An illustration of this power is 
furnished in the life of Bunyan, the profligate 
tinker, who had the good fortune to marry, in 
early life, a worthy young woman, of good 
parentage. 

On hearing of the death of his wife, the 
great explorer, Dr. Livingstone, wrote to a 
friend : " I must confess that this heavy 
stroke quite takes the heart out of me. Every 
thing else that has happened only made me 
more determined to overcome all difficulties ; 
but after this sad stroke I feel crushed and void 
•f strength. Only three short months of her 



62 How to Get on in the World. 

society, after four years' separation ! I married 
her for love, and the longer I lived with her I 
loved her the more. A good wife, and a good, 
brave, kind-hearted mother was she, deserving 
all the praises you bestowed upon her at our 
parting dinner, for teaching her own and the 
native children, too, at Kolobeng. I try to 
bow to the blow as from our Heavenly Father, 
who orders all things for us. . . . I shall do 
my duty still, but it is with a darkened horizon 
that I again set about it." 

Besides being a helper, woman is emphatic- 
ally a consoler. Her sympathy is unfailing. 
She soothes, cheers, and comforts. Never wa« 
this more true than in the case of the wife of 
Tom Hood, whose tender devotion to him, dur- 
ing a life that was a prolonged illness, is one of 
the most affecting things in biography. A 
woman of excellent good sense, she appreciated 
her husband's genius, and, by encouragement 
and sympathy, cheered and heartened him to 
renewed effort in many a weary struggle for 
life. She created about him an atmosphere of 
hope and cheerfulness, and nowhere did the 
sunshine of her love seem so bright as when 
lighting up the couch of her invalid husband. 

Scott wrote beautifully and truthfully : 

" Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
And variable as the shade 
By the light, quivering aspen made, 
When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EDUCATION AS DISTINGUISHED FROM 
LEARNING. 

Although not the same kind, there is as much 
difference between education and learning, as 
there is between character and reputation. 

Learning may be regarded as mental capital, 
in the way of accumulated facts. Education 
is the drawing out and development of the 
best that is in the heart, the head, and the 
hand. 

The civilized world has a score of very learned 
men, to the one who may be said to be 
thoroughly educated. The learned man may 
be familiar with many languages, and sciences, 
and have all the facts of history and liter- 
ature at his fingers' tip, and yet be as helpless 
as an infant and as impractical as a fool. An 
educated man, a man with his powers developed 
by training, may know no language but his 
mother tongue, may be ignorant as to literature 
and art, and yet be well — yes, even superbly 
educated. 

The learned man's mind may be likened to a 
store house, or magazine, in which there are a 
thousand wonderful things, some of which he 
can make of use in the battle of life. He 
resembles the miser who fills his coffers with gold 
and keeps it out of circulation. Beyond the 

63 



64 How to Get on in the World. 

selfish joy of possession, his wealth is worthless, 
and its acquisition has unfitted him for the 
struggle. The educated man, to continue the 
illustration, may not be rich, but he knows how 
to use every cent he owns, and he places it 
where, under his energy, it will grow into dol- 
lars. 

Far be it from us to underestimate the value 
of learning. Many of the world's greatest men 
have been learned, but without exception such 
men have also been educated. They have been 
trained to make their knowledge available for 
the benefit of themselves and their fellow 
men. 

The athlete who developes his muscles to 
their greatest capacity of strength and flexi- 
bility, and this can only be done by observing 
strictly the laws of health, is physically an 
educated man. Every mechanic whose hands 
and brain have been trained to the expertness 
required by the master workman, is well- 
educated in his particular calling. The man 
who is an expert accountant, or a trained civil 
engineer, may know nothing of the higher 
mathematical principles, but he is better 
educated than the scholar who has only a theo- 
retical knowledge of all the mathematics that 
have ever been published. 

The educated man is the man who can do 
something, and the quality of his work marka 
the degree of his education. One might b% 
learned in law in a phenomenal way, and yet, 
unless he was educated, trained to the practice, 



Education vs. Learning. 65 

he would be beaten in the preparation of a case 
by a lawyer's clerk. 

There are men who can write and talk learn- 
edly on political economy and the laws of trade, 
and quote from memory all the statistics of the 
census library, and yet be immeasurably sur- 
passed in practical business, by a young man 
whose college was the store, and whose univer- 
sity was the counting room. 

It should not be inferred from this that 
learning is not of the greatest value, or that the 
facts obtained from the proper books are to be 
ignored. The best investment a young man 
can make is in good books, the study of which 
broadens the mind, and the facts of which equip 
him the better for his life calling. 

But books are not valuable only because of 
the available information they give ; when they 
do not instruct, they elevate and refine. 

" Books," said Hazlitt, " wind into the heart; 
the poet's verse slides into the current of our 
blood. We read them when young, we 
remember them when old. We read there of 
what has happened to others ; we feel that it 
has happened to ourselves. They are to be had 
everywhere cheap and good. We breathe but 
the air of books. We owe everything to their 
authors, on this side barbarism." 

A good book is often the best urn of a life, 
enshrining the best thoughts of which that life 
was capable ; for the w T orld of a man's life is, 
for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. 
Thus the best books are treasuries of good words 



66 How to Get on i?i the World. 

and golden thoughts, which, remembered and 
cherished, become our abiding companions and 
comforters. " They are never alone," said Sir 
Philip Sidney, " that are accompanied by noble 
thoughts." The good and true thought may in 
time of temptation be as an angel of mercy, 
purifying and guarding the soul. It also 
enshrines the germs of action, for good words 
almost invariably inspire to good works. 

Thus Sir Henry Lawrence prized above all 
other compositions Wordsworth's "Character 
of the Happy Warrior," which he endeavored 
to embody in his own life. It was ever before 
him as an exemplar. He thought of it continu- 
ally, and often quoted it to others. His 
biographer says, " He tried to conform his own 
life and to assimilate his own character to it ; and 
he succeeded, as all men succeed who are truly 
in earnest. ,, 

Books possess an essence of immortality. 
They are by far the most lasting products of 
human effort. Temples crumble into ruin; 
pictures and statues decay ; but books survive. 
Time is of no account with great thoughts, which 
are as fresh to-day as when they first passed 
through their authors' minds, ages ago. What 
was then said and thought still speaks to us 
as vividly as ever from the printed page. The 
only effect of time has been to sift and winnow 
out the bad products ; for nothing in literature 
can long survive but what is really good. 

To the young man, "thirsting for learning and 
hungering for education," there are no books 



Educatio7i vs. Leami?ig. 67 

more helpful than the biographies of those 
whom it is well to imitate. Longfellow wisely 
says: 

" Lives of great men all remind us, 
We can make our lives sublime, 

And departing leave behind ijs, 
Footprints on the sands of 'dme — 

Footprints which perhaps another, 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 

A forlorn and ship-wrecked brother, 
Seeing, may take heart again." 

At the head of all biographies stands the 
Great Biography — the Book of Books. And 
what is the Bible, the most sacred and impres- 
sive of all books — the educator of youth, the 
guide of manhood, and the consoler of age — 
but a series of biographies of great heroes and 
patriarchs, prophets, kings and judges, culmi- 
nating in the greatest biography of all — the Life 
embodied in the New Testament? How much 
have the great examples there set forth done 
for mankind ! Plow many have drawn from 
them their best strength, their highest wisdom, 
their best nurture and admonition ! Truly does 
a great and deeply pious writer describe the 
Bible as a book whose words " live in the ear 
like a music that never can be forgotten — like 
the sound of church-bells which the convert 
hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities 
often seem to be almost things rather than mere 



68 How to Get on in the World. 

words. It is part of the national mind, and the 
anchor of national seriousness. The memory 
of the dead passes into it. The potent tradi- 
tions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. 
The power of all the griefs and trials of man 
is hidden beneath its words. It is the represen- 
tative of his best moments ; and all that has 
been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, 
and penitent, and good, speaks to him forever 
out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, 
which doubt has never dimmed and controversy 
never soiled. In the length and breadth of the 
land there is not an individual with one spark 
of religiousness about him whose spiritual bio- 
graphy is not in his Saxon Bible." 

History itself is best studied in biography. 
Indeed, history is biography — collective 
humanity as influenced and governed by indi- 
vidual men. " What is all history," says 
Emerson, " but the work of ideas, a record of the 
incomparable energy which his infinite aspira- 
tions infuse into man ? In its pages it is always 
persons we see more than principles. Historical 
events are interesting to us mainly in connec- 
tion with the feelings, the sufferings, and 
interests of those by whom they are accom- 

{>lished. In history we are surrounded by men 
ong dead, but whose speech and whose deeds 
survive. We almost catch the sound of their 
voices; and what they did constitutes the 
interest of history. We never feel personally 
interested in masses of men ; but we feel and 
sympathize with the individual actors, whose 



Education vs. Learning . 69 

biographies afford the finest and most real 
touches in all great historical dramas." 

As in portraiture, so in biography — there 
must be light and shade. The portrait-painter 
does not pose his sitter so as to bring out his 
deformities ; nor does the biographer give undue 
prominence to the defects of the character he 
portrays. Not many men are so outspoken as 
Cromwell was when he sat to Cooper for his 
miniature : " Paint me as I am," said he, 
" wart and all." Yet, if we would have a 
faithful likeness of faces and characters, they 
must be painted as they are. " Biography," 
said Sir Walter Scott, " the most interesting of 
every species of composition, loses all its interest 
with me when the shades and lights of the 
principal characters are not accurately and 
faithfully detailed. I can no more sympathize 
with a mere eulogist than I can with a ranting 
hero on the stage." 

It is to be regretted that in this day the 
country is flooded with cheajo, trashy fiction, the 
general tendency of which is not only not edu- 
cational, but is positively destructive. The 
desire to read this stuff is as demoralizing as 
the opium habit. 

There are works of fiction, cheap and avail- 
able, too, whose influence is elevating, and some 
knowledge of which is essential to the young 
man who is using his spare hours for the pur- 
pose of self-education. 

There is no room for doubt that the sur- 
passing interest which fiction, whether in poetry 



70 How to Get on in the World, 

or prose, possesses for most minds arises mainly 
from the biographic element which it contains. 
Homer's " Iliad " owes its marvelous popularity 
to the genius w T hich its author displayed in the 
portrayal of heroic character. Yet he does not 
so much describe his personages in detail as 
make them develop themselves by their actions. 
" There are in Homer," said Dr. Johnson, " such 
characters of heroes and combination of qual- 
ities of heroes, that the united powers of man- 
kind ever since have not produced any but 
what are to be found there." 

The genius of Shakespeare, also, was dis- 
played in the powerful delineation of character, 
and the dramatic evolution of human passions. 
His personages seem to be real — living and 
breathing before us. So, too, with Cervantes, 
• whose Sancho Panza, though homely and vul- 
gar, is intenselv human. The characters in Le 
Sage's " Gil Bias," in Goldsmith's " Vicar of 
Wakefield," and in Scott's marvelous muster- 
roll, seem to us almost as real as persons whom 
we have actually known ; and De Foe's greatest 
works are but so many biographies, painted in 
minute detail, with reality so apparently 
stamped upon every page that it is difficult to 
believe his Eobinson Crusoe and Colonel Jack 
to have been fictitious persons instead of real 
ones. 

Then we have a fine American literature, 
which should be read after the history of the 
country is mastered. The stories of Cooper are 
fresh and invigorating, and those of Hawthorne 



Education vs. Learning. 71 

are life studies and prose poems. Holmes, 
Lowell, Emerson, Bayard Taylor, and scores of 
other American writers, whose pens have added 
lustre to the country, will well repay the reader. 

Good books are among the best of compan- 
ions ; and, by elevating the thoughts and as- 
pirations, they act as preservatives against low 
associations. "A natural turn for reading and 
intellectual pursuits," says Thomas Hood, 
" probably preserved me from the moral ship- 
wreck so apt to befall those who are deprived 
in early life of their parental pilotage. My 
books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit,- the 
tavern, the saloon. The closet associate of 
Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to the 
noble though silent discourse of Shakespeare 
and Milton, will hardly seek or put up with low 
company and slaves." 

It has been truly said that the best books are 
those which most resemble good actions. They 
are purifying, elevating, and sustaining ; they 
enlarge and liberalize the mind ; they preserve 
it against vulgar worldliness ; they tend to pro- 
duce high-minded cheerfulness and equanimity 
of character; they fashion, and shape, and 
humanize the mind. In the Northern univer- 
sities, the schools in which the ancient classics 
are studied are appropriately styled " The 
Humanity Classes." 

Erasmus, the great scholar, was even of 
opinion that books were the necessaries of life, 
and clothes the luxuries; and he frequently 
postponed buying the latter until he had sup- 



72 How to Get on in the World. 

plied himself with the former. His greatest 
favorites were the writings of Cicero, which he 
says he always felt himself the better for read- 
ing. " I can never," he says, " read the works 
of Cicero on * Old Age/ or ' Friendship,' or his 
' Tusculan Disputations,' without fervently 
pressing them to my lips, without being pene- 
trated with veneration for a mind little short of 
inspired by God himself." 

It is unnecessary to speak of the enormous 
moral influence which books have exercised 
upon the general civilization of mankind, from 
the Bible downward. They contain the treas- 
ured knowledge of the human race. They are 
the record of all labors, achievements, specula- 
tions, successes, and failures, in science, philoso- 
phy, religion, and morals. They have been the 
greatest motive-powers in all times. " From 
the Gospel to the Contrat Social," says De 
Bonald, "it is books that have made revolu- 
tions." Indeed, a great book is often a greater 
thing than a great battle. Even works of 
fiction have occasionally exercised immense 
power on society. 

Bear in mind that it is not all we eat that 
nourishes, but what we digest. The learned 
man is a glutton as to books, but the educated 
man knows that, no matter how much is read, 
benefit is only derived from the thoughts that 
develop our own thoughts and strengthen our 
own minds. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE VALUE OF EXPERIENCE. 

" What experience have you had? " This is 
apt to be the first question put by an employer 
to the applicant for a place, be he mechanic, 
clerk, or laborer. If you need a doctor, you 
would prefer to trust your case to a man of ex- 
perience, rather than to one fresh from a medical 
college. Apart from the established reputation, 
that comes only with time, and natural abilities 
which count for much, the principal difference 
between men in every calling is the difference 
in their experiences. 

If this experience is so essential, we must 
regard as wanting in judgment the young man, 
who, after a short service, imagines he is as well 
qualified to conduct the business as his superior 
in place. No amount of natural ability, and no 
effort of energy can compensate for the training 
that comes from experience. Indeed, it is only 
after we have studied and tested ourselves, and 
overestimated our talents to our injury, more 
than once, that experience gives us a proper 
estimate of our own strength and weakness. 

Contact with others is requisite to enable a 
man to know himself. It is only by mixing 
freely in the world that one can form a proper 
estimate of his own capacity. Without such 
experience, one is apt to become conceited, 
puffed up, and arrogant ; at all events, he will 
73 



74 How to Get on i?i the World. 

remain ignorant of himself, though he may 
heretofore have enjoyed no other company. 

Swift once said : " It is an un controverted 
truth, that no man ever made an ill-figure who 
understood his own talents, nor a good one who 
mistook them." Many persons, however, are 
readier to take measure of the capacity of 
others than of themselves. " Bring him to me," 
said a certain Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, speak- 
ing of Eousseau — " bring him to me that I may 
see whether he has got anything in him!" — 
the probability being that Rousseau, who knew 
himself better, was much more likely to take 
measure of Tronchin than Tronchin was to take 
measure of him. 

A due amount of self-knowledge is, therefore, 
necessary for those w 7 ho would be anything or 
do anything in the world. It is also one of 
the first essentials^ to the formation of distinct 
personal convictions. Frederick Perthes once 
said to a young friend, " You know only too 
well what you can do ; but till you have learned 
what you can not do, you will neither accom- 
plish anything of moment nor know inward 
peace." 

Any one who would profit by experience will 
never be above asking help. He who thinks 
himself already too wise to learn of others, will 
never succeed in doing anything either good or 
great. We have to keep our minds and hearts 
open, and never be ashamed to learn, with the 
assistance of those who are w T iser and more ex- 
perienced than ourselves. 



Thi Value of Experience. 75 

The man made wise by experience endeavors 
to judge correctly of the things which come 
under his observation and form the subject of 
his daily life. What we call common sense is, 
for the most part, but the result of common ex- 
perience wisely improved. Nor is great ability 
necessary to acquire it, so much as patience, 
accuracy, and watchfulness. 

The results of experience are, of course, only 
to be achieved by living ; and living is a ques- 
tion of time. The man of experience learns to 
rely upon time as his helper. "Time and I 
against any two," was a maxim of Cardinal 
Mazarin. Time has been described as a beau- 
tifier and as a consoler ; but it is also a teacher. 
It is the food of experience, the soil of wisdom. 
It may be the friend or the enemy of youth ; 
and time will sit beside the old as a consoler or 
as a tormentor, according as it has been used or 
misused, and the past life has been well or ill 
spent. 

" Time," says George Herbert, " is the rider 
that breaks youth." To the young, how bright 
the new world looks ! — how full of novelty, of 
enjoyment, of pleasure ! But as years pass, 
we find the world to be a place of sorrow as 
well as of joy. As we proceed through life, 
many dark vistas open upon us — of toil, suffer- 
ing, difficulty, perhaps misfortune and failure. 
Happy they who can pass through and amidst 
such trials with a firm mind and pure heart, en- 
countering trials with cheerfulness, and stand- 
ing erect beneath even the heaviest burden ! 



76 How to Get on in the Woi'ld. 

Thomas A. Edison, the great inventor, in 
speaking of his success to the writer, said : 

" I had when I started out all the patience 
and perseverance that I have now, but I lacked 
the experience. Seeing that I had only ten 
weeks' regular schooling in all my life, I can 
say with truth that experience has been my 
school and my only one. 

" Many believe that my life has been a success 
from the start, and I do not try to undeceive 
them, but as a matter of fact my failures have 
exceeded my successes as one hundred to one ; 
but even the experience of these failures has 
been in itself an educator and has enabled me 
not to repeat them." 

The brave man will not be baffled, but tries 
and tries again until he succeeds. The tree 
does not fall at the first stroke, but only by re- 
peated strokes and after great labor. We may 
see the visible success at which a man has 
arrived, but forget the toil and suffering and 
peril through which it has been achieved. 

For the same reason, it is often of advantage 
for a man to be under the necessity of having 
to struggle with poverty and conquer it. " He 
who has battled," says Carlyle, " were it only 
with poverty and hard toil, will be found 
stronger and more expert than he w T ho could 
stay at home from the battle, concealed among 
the provision wagons, or even rest un watch- 
fully c abiding by the stuff/ " 

Scholars have found poverty tolerable com- 
pared with the privation of intellectual food. 



The Value of Experience. 77 

Riches weigh much more heavily upon the mind. 
" I cannot but choose say to Poverty," said 
Richter, " Be welcome ! so that thou come not 
too late in life." Poverty, Horace tells us, 
drove him to poetry and poetry introduced him 
to Varus and Virgil and Maecenas. "Ob- 
stacles," says Michelet, " are great incentives. 
I lived for whole years upon a Virgil and found 
myself well off." 

Many have to make up their minds to 
encounter failure again and again before they 
succeed ; but if they have pluck, the failure 
will only serve to rouse their courage and stim- 
ulate them to renewed efforts. Talma, the 
greatest of actors, was hissed off the stage 
when he first appeared on it. Lacordaire, one 
of the greatest preachers of modern times, only 
acquired celebrity after repeated failures. 
Montalembert said of his first public appear- 
ance in the church of St. Roch : He failed 
completely, and, on coming out, every one said, 
u Though he may be a man of talent he will never 
be a preacher." Again and again he tried, 
until he succeeded, and only two years after his 
debut, Lacordaire was preaching in Notre Dame 
to audiences such as few French orators have 
addressed since the time of Bossuet and Massilon. 

When Mr. Cobden first appeared as a speaker 
at a public meeting in Manchester, he com- 
pletely broke down and the chairman apolo- 
gized for his failure. Sir James Graham and 
Mr. Disraeli failed and w T ere derided at first, 
and only succeeded by dint of great labor and 



78 How to Get o?i in the World. 

application. At one time Sir James Graham had 
almost given up public speaking in despair. He 
said to his friend Sir Francis Baring : " I have 
tried it every way — extempore, from notes, and 
committing it all to memory — and I can't do it. 
I don't know why it is, but I am afraid I shall 
never succeed." Yet by dint of perseverance, 
Graham, like Disraeli, lived to become one of 
the most effective and impressive of parliament- 
ary speakers. 

In every field of effort success has only come 
after many trials. Morse with his telegraph 
and Howe with his sewing machine lived in 
poverty and met with many disappointments 
before the world came to appreciate the value 
of their great inventions. 

It can be said with truth that these great 
men could have avoided much of their trouble 
if they had had the necessary experience. But 
particularly in the two cases cited before, the 
inventions were new to the world and it needed 
that the world should have the experience of 
their utility as well as the inventors. 

Science also has had its martyrs, who have 
fought their way to light through difficulty, 
persecution and suffering. We need not refer 
to the cases of Bruno, Galileo and others, per- 
secuted because of the supposed heterodoxy of 
their views. But there have been other unfor- 
tunates among men of science, whose genius has 
been unable to save them from the fury of their 
enemies. Thus Bailly, the celebrated French 
astronomer (who had been mayor of Paris) and 



The Value of Experience. 79 

Lavoisier, the great chemist, were both guillo- 
tined in the first French Revolution. When 
the latter, after being sentenced to death 
by the Commune, asked for a few days' respite 
to enable him to ascertain the result of some 
experiments he had made during his confine- 
ment, the tribunal refused his appeal, and 
ordered him for immediate execution, one of 
the judges saying that " the Republic has no 
need of philosophers." In England also, about 
the same time, Dr. Priestley, the father of 
modern chemistry, had his house burned over his 
head and his library destroyed, amidst the shouts 
of " No philosophers ! " and he fled from his 
native country to lay his bones in a foreign land. 

Courageous men have often turned enforced 
solitude to account in executing works of great 
pith and moment. It is in solitude that the 
passion for spiritual perfection best nurses itself. 
The soul communes with itself in loneliness 
until its energy often becomes intense. But 
whether a man profits by solitude or not will 
mainly depend upon his own temperament, 
training and character. While, in a large-na- 
tured man, solitude w T ill make the pure heart 
purer, in the small-natured man it will only 
serve to make the hard heart still harder ; for 
though solitude may be the nurse of great 
spirits, it is the torment of small ones. 

Not only have many of the world's greatest 
benefactors, men whose lives history now 
records the most successful, had not only to 
contend with poverty, but it was their misfor- 
tune to be misunderstood and to be regarded as 



80 How to Get on in the World. 

criminals. Many a great reformer in religion, 
science, and government has paid for his opin- 
ions by imprisonment. Speaking of these great 
men, a prominent English writer says : Prisons 
may have held them, but their thoughts were 
not to be confined by prison walls. They have 
burst through and defied the power of their 
persecutors. It was Lovelace, a prisoner, who 
wrote : 

" Stone w T alls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage ; 

Minds innocent and quiet take 
That for a hermitage." 

It was a saying of Milton that, " who best 
can suffer, best can do." The work of many of 
the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been 
done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. 
They have struggled against the tide and reached 
the shore exhausted, only to grasp the sand and 
expire. They have done their duty and been 
content to die. But death hath no power over 
such men ; their hallowed memories still survive 
to soothe and purify and bless us. " Life," 
said Goethe, "to us all is suffering. Who save 
God alone shall call us to our reckoning ? Let 
not reproaches fall on the departed. Not what 
they have failed in, nor what they have suffered, 
"but what they have done, ought to occupy the 
survivors." 

Thus, it is not ease and facility that try men 
and bring out the good that is in them, so 
much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the 



The Value of Experience. 8r 

touchstone of character. As some herbs need 
to be crushed to give forth their sweetest odor, so 
some natures need to be tried by suffering to 
evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence 
trials often unmask virtues and bring to light 
hidden graces. 

Suffering may be the appointed means by 
which the higher nature of man is to be dis- 
ciplined and developed. Assuming happiness 
to be the end of being, sorrow may be the in- 
dispensable condition through which it is to be 
reached. Hence St. Paul's noble paradox de- 
scriptive of the Christian life — "As chastened, 
and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet always rejoic- 
ing ; as poor, yet making many rich ; as having 
nothing, and yet possessing all things." 

Even pain is not all painful. On one side it 
is related to suffering, and on the other to hap- 
piness. For pain is remedial as well as sorrow- 
ful. Suffering is a misfortune as viewed from 
the one side, and a discipline as viewed from 
the other. But for suffering, the best part of 
many men's natures would sleep a deep sleep- 
Indeed, it might almost be said that pain and 
sorrow were the indispensable conditions of 
some men's success, and the necessary means to 
evoke the highest development of their genius. 
Shelley has said of poets : 

" Most wretched men are cradled into poetry 
by wrong, 
They learn in suffering what they teach in 
song." 



82 How to Get on in the World. 

But the young man meeting with disappoint- 
ments, as he is sure to do in the beginning of 
his career, particularly if he be dependent on 
himself, should take comfort from the thought 
that others who have risen to success have had 
to travel the same hard road ; and such men 
have confessed that these trials, these bitter ex- 
periences, were the most valuable of their lives. 

Life, all sunshine without shade, all happi- 
ness without sorrow, all pleasure without pain, 
were not life at all — at least not human life. 
Take the lot of the happiest — it is a tangled 
yarn. It is made up of sorrows and joys ; and 
the joys are all the sweeter because of the sor- 
rows ; bereavements and blessings, one follow- 
ing another, making us sad and blessed by 
turns. Even death itself makes life more lov- 
ing ; it binds us more closely together while 
here. Dr. Thomas Browne has argued that 
death is one of the necessary conditions of 
human happiness, and he supports his argu- 
ment with great force and eloquence. But 
when death comes into a household, we do not 
philosophize — we only feel. The eyes that are 
full of tears do not see ; though in course of 
time they come to see more clearly and brightly 
than those that have never known sorrow. 

There is much in life that, while in this state, 
we can never comprehend. There is, indeed, a 
great deal of mystery in life — much that we 
see "as in a glass darkly." But though we 
may not apprehend the full meaning of the 
discipline of trial through which the best have 



The Value of Experience, 83 

to pass, we must have faith in the completeness 
of the design of which our little individual 
lives form a part. 

We have each to do our duty in that sphere 
of life in which we have been placed. Duty 
alone is true ; there is no true action but in its 
accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of 
the highest life ; the truest pleasure of all is 
that derived from the consciousness of its ful- 
fillment. Of all others, it is the one that is 
most thoroughly satisfying, and the least ac- 
companied by regret and disappointment. In 
the words of George Herbert, the consciousness 
of duty performed " gives us music at mid- 
night." 

And when we have done our work on earth — 
of necessity, of labor, of love, or of duty — like 
the silk-worm that spins its little cocoon and 
dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay 
in life may be, it is the appointed sphere in 
which each has to work out the great aim and 
end of his being to the best of his power ; and 
when that is done, the accidents of the flesh 
will affect but little the immortality we shall at 
last put on. 



CHAPTER X. 

SELECTING A CALLING. 

In reading the lives of great men, one is 
struck with a very important fact : that their 
success has been won in callings for which in 
early manhood they had no particular liking. 
Necessity or chance has, in many cases, decided 
what their life-work should be. But even where 
the employment w T as at first uncongenial, a 
strict sense of duty and a strong determination 
to master the difficult and to like the disagree- 
able, conquered in the end. 

In these days of fierce competition, no mat- 
ter how ardent the desire for fame, he is a 
dreamer who loses sight of the monetary re- 
turns of his life-efforts. 

There have been a few men whose wants 
were simple, and these wants guarded against 
by a certain official income, who could afford to 
ignore gain and to work for the truths of 
science or the good of humanity. The great 
English chemist Faraday was of this class. 
Once asked by a friend why he did not use his 
great abilities and advantages to accumulate a 
fortune, he said : " My clear fellow, I haven't 
time to give to money making." 

It is, perhaps, to be regretted that in nearly 
every case the efforts of to-day, whether in 
commerce, trade, or science, have for their pur- 
pose the making of fortunes. Nor should this 
84 



Selecting a Calling. 85 

spirit be condemned, for fortune in the hands 
of the right men is a blessing to the world and 
particularly to those who are more improvident. 

Peter Cooper, Stephen Girard, George Pea- 
body, and many other eminent Americans who 
made their way to great wealth from compara- 
tive poverty, used that wealth to enable young 
men, starting life as they did, to achieve the 
same success without having to encounter the 
same obstacles. 

It is a well-known fact that boys who live 
near the sea have an intense yearning to 
become sailors. Every healthy boy has a long- 
ing to be a soldier, and he takes the greatest 
delight in toy military weapons. 

Our ideals for living, particularly when they 
are the creations of a youthful imagination, are 
but seldom safe guides for our mature years. 
The fairy stories that delighted our childhood 
and the romances that fired our youth, are found 
but poor guides to success, when the great life- 
battle is on us. 

It is a mistake for parents and guardians to 
say that this boy or that girl shall follow out 
this or that life-calling, without any regard to 
the tastes, or any consideration of the natural 
capacity. It is equally an error, because the 
boy or girl may like this or that branch of 
study more than another, to infer that this in- 
dicates a talent for that subject. Arithmetic 
is but seldom as popular with young people as 
history, simply because the latter requires less 
mental effort to master it. The world is full of 



86 How to Get on in the World, 

professional incompetents — creatures of circum- 
stances very often, but more frequently their 
life-failure is due to the whims of ambitious 
parents. 

While the child and even the young man are 
but seldom the best judges of what a life-calling 
should be, yet the observant parent and teacher 
can discover the natural inclination, and by 
encouragement, develop this inclination. 

As the wrecks on sandy beaches and by rock- 
bound shores, warn the careful mariner from the 
same fate, so the countless wrecks which the 
young man sees on every hand, increasing as he 
goes through life, should warn him from the 
same dangers. 

It is stated, on what seems good authority, 
that ninety-five per cent of the men who go into 
business for themselves, fail at some time. It 
would be an error, however, to infer from this 
that the failures were due to a mistaken life- 
calling. They have been due rather to unfore- 
seen circumstances, over-confidence, or the 
desire to succeed too rapidly. Benefiting by 
these reverses, a large per cent of the failures 
have entered on the life-struggle again and won. 

In the early days of the world's history, the 
callings or fields of effort were necessarily 
limited to the chase, herding or agriculture. 
In those times, the toiler had not only to work 
for the support of himself and family, but he 
had also to be a warrior, trained to the use of 
arms, and ready to defend the products of his 
labor from the theft of robber neighbors. 



Selecting a Calling, 87 

In this later and broader day, civilization 
has opened up thousands of avenues of effort 
that were unknown to our less fortunate 
ancestors. 

While the world is filled with human misfits, 
round pegs in square holes and square pegs in 
round holes, the choice of callings has so spread 
with the growth of civilization, that every 
young man who reasons for himself and studies 
his own powers, can with more or less certainty 
find out his calling, and pursue it with a success 
entirely dependent on his own fitness and 
energy. 

In a general way, the great fields of human 
effort, at this time, may be divided into three 
classes. First, the so-called "learned profes- 
sions " — journalism, theology, medicine and law. 
Second, the callings pertaining to public life, 
such as politics, military, science, and educa- 
tion. Third, those vocations that pertain to 
production, like agriculture, manufactures, and 
commerce. 

But apart from the callings selected, it should 
be kept carefully in mind that, no matter the 
business, success is dependent entirely on the 
man. 

Business is the salt of life, which not only 
gives a grateful smack to it, but dries up those 
crudities that would offend, preserves from pu- 
trefaction, and drives off all those blowing flies 
that would corrupt it. Let a man be sure to 
drive his business rather than let it drive him. 
When a man is but once brought to be driven, 



88 How to Get on in the Worcd. 

he becomes a vassal to his affairs. Reason and 
right give the quickest dispatch. All the en- 
tanglements that we meet with arise from the 
irrationality of ourselves or others. With a 
wise and honest man a business is soon ended, 
but with a fool and knave there is no conclu- 
sion, and seldom even a beginning. 

Having decided on a calling, bear ever in 
mind that faith and trustful n ess lie at the foun- 
dation of trade and commercial intercourse, 
and business transactions of every kind. A 
community of known swindlers and knaves 
would try in vain to avail themselves of the 
advantages of traffic, or to gain access to those 
circles where honor and honesty are indispens- 
able passports. Hence the value which is 
attached, by all right-minded men, to purity of 
purpose and integrity of character. A man 
may be unfortunate, he may be poor and penni- 
less ; but if he is known to possess unbending 
integrity, an unwavering purpose to do what is 
honest and just, he will have friends and patrons 
whatever may be the embarrassments and exi- 
gencies into which he is thrown. The poor 
man may thus possess a capital of which none 
of the misfortunes and calamities of life can 
deprive him. AVe have known men who have 
been suddenly reduced from affluence to penury 
by misfortunes, which they could neither foresee 
nor prevent. A fire has swept away the accumu- 
lations of years ; misplaced confidence, a flood, 
or some of the thousand casualties to which 
commercial men are exposed, have stripped 



Selecting a Calling, 89 

them of their possessions. To-day they have 
been prosperous, to-morrow every prospect is 
blighted, and everything in its aspect is dark 
and dismal. Their business is gone, their prop- 
erty is gone, and they feel that all is gone ; but 
they have a rich treasure which the fire cannot 
consume, which the flood cannot carry away. 
They have integrity of character, and this 
gives them influence, raises up friends, and 
furnishes them with means to start afresh in 
the world once more. Young men, especially, 
should be deeply impressed with the vast im- 
portance of cherishing those principles, and of 
cultivating those habits, which will secure for 
them the confidence and esteem of the wise and 
good. Let it be borne in mind that no brill- 
iancy of genius, no tact or talent in business, 
and no amount of success, will compensate for 
duplicity, shuffling, and trickery. There may 
be apparent advantage in the art and practice 
of dissimulation, and in violating those great 
principles which lie at the foundation of truth 
and duty ; but it will at length be seen that a 
dollar was lost where a cent was gained ; that 
present successes are outweighed, a thousand- 
fold, by the pains and penalties which result 
from loss of confidence and loss of reputation. 
It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the 
minds of young men to abstain from every 
course, from every act, which shocks their moral 
sensibilities, wounds their conscience, and has a 
tendency to weaken their sense of honor and 
integrity. 



CHAPTER XL 

WE MUST HELP OURSELVES. 

To the young man of the right kind, the 
inheritance of a fortune, or the possession of 
influential friends, may be great advantages, 
but more frequently they are hindrances. To 
win you must fight for yourself, and the effort 
will give you strength. 

The spirit of self-help is the root of all gen- 
uine growth in the individual ; and, exhibited 
in the lives of many, it constitutes the true 
source of national vigor and strength. Help 
from without is often enfeebling in its effects, 
but help from within invariably invigorates. 
Whatever is done for men or classes, to a cer- 
tain extent takes away the stimulus and neces- 
sity of doing for themselves ; and where men 
are subjected to over-guidance and over-govern- 
ment, the inevitable tendency is to render them 
comparatively helpless. 

The privileges of a superior education, like 
the inheritance of a fortune, depends upon the 
man. It should encourage those who have only 
themselves and God to look to for support, to 
remember that self-education is the best educa- 
tion, and that some of the greatest men have 
had few or no school advantages. 

Daily experience shows that it is energetic 
individualism which produces the most powerful 
effects upon the life and action of others, and 



We Must Help Ourselves. 91 

really constitutes the best practical education. 
Schools, academies, and colleges give but the 
merest beginnings of culture in comparison 
with it. Far more influential is the life-educa- 
tion daily given in our homes, in the streets, 
behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and 
the plough, in counting-houses and manufac- 
tories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is 
that finishing instruction as members of society, 
which Schiller designated "the education of 
the human race/' consisting in action, conduct, 
self-culture, self-control — all that tends to dis- 
cipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper 
performance of the duties and business of life 
— a kind of education not to be learned from 
books, or acquired by any amount of mere lit- 
erary training. With his usual weight of words 
Bacon observes, that " Studies teach not their 
own use ; but that is a wisdom without them, 
and above them, won by observation ; " a 
remark that holds true of actual life, as well as 
of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For 
all experience serves to illustrate and enforce 
the lesson, that a man perfects himself by work 
more than by reading — that it is life rather 
than literature, action rather than study, and 
character rather than biography, which tend 
perpetually to renovate mankind. 

No matter how humble your calling in life 
may be, take heart from the fact that many of 
the world's greatest men have had no superior 
advantages. Lincoln studied law lying on his 
face before a los:-fire ; General Garfield drove a 



92 How to Get on in the World. 

mule on a canal tow-path in his boyhood, and 
George Peabocly, owing to the poverty of his 
family, was an errand boy in a grocery store at 
the age of eleven. 

Great men of science, literature, and art — 
apostles of great thoughts and lords of the great 
heart — have belonged to no exclusive class or 
rank in life. They have come alike from col- 
leges, workshops, and farm-houses — from the 
huts of poor men and the mansions of the rich. 
Some of God's greatest apostles have come from 
" the ranks." The poorest have sometimes 
taken the highest places, nor have difficulties 
apparently the most insuperable proved ob- 
stacles in their way. Those very difficulties, 
in many instances, would even seem to have 
been their best helpers, by evoking their powers 
of labor and endurance, and stimulating into 
life faculties which might otherwise have lain 
dormant. The instances of obstacles thus 
surmounted, and of triumphs thus achieved, 
are indeed so numerous as almost to justify 
the proverb that " with will one can do any- 
thing." 

If w r e look to England, the mother country, 
a land where the advantages are not nearly so 
great as in this and the difficulties greater, we 
shall find noble spirits rising to usefulness and 
eminence in the face of difficulties equally great. 

Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel the great admiral, Sturgeon the electri- 
cian, Samuel Drew the essayist, Gifford the 
editor of the Quarterly Revieiv, Bloomfield the 



We Must Help Ourselves. 93 

poet, and William Carey the missionary ; whilst 
Morrison, another laborious missionary, was a 
maker of shoe-lasts. Within the last few years, 
a profound naturalist has been discovered in 
the person of a shoemaker at Banff, named 
Thomas Edwards, who, while maintaining him- 
self by his trade, has devoted his leisure to the 
study of natural science in all its branches, his 
researches in connection with the smaller crus- 
tacea3 having been rewarded by the discovery 
of a new species, to which the name of " Praniza 
Edwardsii " has been given by naturalists. 

Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John 
Stow, the historian, worked at the trade during 
some part of his life. Jackson, the painter, 
made clothes until he reached manhood. The 
brave Sir John Hawkswood, who so greatly 
distinguished himself at Poictiers, and was 
knighted by Edward III. for his valor, was in 
early life apprenticed to a London tailor. 
Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom at Vigo 
in 1702, belonged to the same calling. He was 
working as tailor's apprentice near Bonchurch, 
in the Isle of Wight, when the news flew 
through the village that a squadron of men-of- 
war was sailing off the island. He sprang from 
the shopboard, and ran down with his comrades 
to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight. 
The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambi- 
tion to be a sailor ; and springing into a boat, 
he rowed off to the squadron, gained the 
admiral's ship, and was accepted as a volunteer. 
Years after, he returned to his native village 



94 How to Get o?i i?i the World. 

full of honors, and dined off bacon and eggs in 
the cottage where he had worked as an appren- 
tice. 

Oliver Goldsmith was regarded as a dunce in 
his school days, and Daniel Webster wa3 so 
dull as a school-boy as not to indicate in any 
way the great abilities he was to display. 

Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth; at 
sixteen he ran away from home and was by 
turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy, a work- 
man at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit-skins. 
In 1792, he enlisted as a volunteer and in a 
year he was general of brigade. Kleber, Le- 
febvre, Suchet, Victor, Lannes, Soult, Massena, 
St. Cyr, D'Erlon, Murat, Augereau, Bessieres 
and -Ney, all rose from the ranks. In some 
cases promotion was rapid, in others it was 
slow. St. Cyr, the son of a tanner of Toul, 
began life as an actor, after which he enlisted 
in the chasseurs and was promoted to a cap- 
taincy within a year. Victor, Due de Belluno, 
enlisted in the artillery in 1781 : during the 
events preceding the Revolution he was dis- 
charged ; but immediately on the outbreak of 
war he re-enlisted, and in the course of a 
few months his intrepidity and ability secured 
his promotion as adjutant-major and chief of 
battalion. Murat was the son of a village inn- 
keeper in Perigord, where he looked after the 
horses. He first enlisted in a regiment of chas- 
seurs, from which he was dismissed for insubor- 
dination ; but again enlisting he shortly rose to 
the rank of colonel. Ney enlisted at eighteen 



We Must Help Ourselves. 95 

in a hussar regiment and gradually advanced 
step by step ; Kleber soon discovered his mer- 
its, surnaming him " The Indefatigable," and 
promoted him to be adjutant-general when 
only twenty-five. 

General Christopher Carson, or " Kit " Car- 
son as he is known to the world, although 
strictly temperate in his life and as gentle as a 
blue-eyed child in his manner, ran away from 
his home in Missouri to the Western wilds, 
w T hen he was a boy of fourteen. His father 
wanted him to be a farmer, but Providence had 
greater if not nobler uses for him. Out in the 
Rocky Mountains — then a wilderness — he 
learned the Indian languages, and became as 
familiar with every trail and pass as the red 
men. 

It was the knowledge gained in those early 
days that enabled Kit Carson to carry succor 
to Fremont's men perishing in the mountains. 
Not only did Carson bring food to the dying 
men, but when they were strong enough to move 
he guided them to a place of safety. 

This truly great man averted many an Indian 
war, and did as much for the settlement and 
civilization of the West as any man of his day — 
more, indeed. In the days of secession he w T as 
a patriot, and though he might have grown 
rich at the expense of the Government, he pre- 
ferred to die a poor and honored man. 

Admiral Farragut, although born in East 
Tennessee, went into the United States Navy at 
the earlv ao;e of eleven. He was the youngest 



96 Hozv to Get on in the World, 

midshipman in the service. " Before I had 
reached the age of sixteen," he says, " I prided 
myself on my profanity, and could drink with 
the strongest." 

One morning on recovering from a debauch 
he reviewed the situation and saw the shoals 
ahead. Then and there he fell on his knees and 
asked God to help him. From that day on he 
gave up tobacco, liquor, and profanity, devoted 
himself to the study of his profession, and so 
became the greatest Admiral of modern times. 

" The canal boat captains, when I was a 
boy," said General Garfield, " were a profane, 
carousing, ignorant lot, and, as a boy, I was 
eager to imitate them. But my eyes were opened 
before I contracted their habits, and I left them." 

John B. Gough is an example of such a 
change of life that should encourage every 
young man who has made a mis-step. 

Among like men of the same class may be 
ranked the late Richard Cobden, whose start in 
life was equally humble. The son of a small 
farmer at Midhurst in Sussex, he was sent at an 
early age to London and employed as a boy in 
a warehouse in the City. He was diligent, 
well-conducted, and eager for information. His 
master, a man of the old school, warned him 
against too much reading ; but the boy went on 
in his own course, storing his mind with the 
wealth found in books. He was promoted from 
one position of trust to another, became a 
traveler for his house, secured a large connec- 
tion, and eventually started in business as a 



We Must Help Ourseh es. 97 

calico-printer at Manchester. Taking an inter- 
est in public questions, more especially in pop- 
ular education, his attention was gradually 
drawn to the subject of the Corn Laws, to the 
repeal of which he may be said to have contrib- 
uted more than all the rest of Parliament. 

It would be a mistake, however, to judge 
from this that all the world's greatest men. 
started life poor, or that some men of wealth and 
prominent family have not contributed their 
share, and have not, by reason of that wealth, 
sedulously followed a useful life-calling. 

Riches are so great a temptation to ease and 
self-indulgence, to which men are by nature 
prone, that the glory is all the greater of those 
who, born to ample fortunes, nevertheless take 
an active part in the work of their generation 
— who " scorn delights and live laborious 
days." 

It was a fine thing said of a subaltern officer 
in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging 
along through mud and mire by the side of his 
regiment, " There goes £15,000 a year ! " and 
in our own day, the bleak slopes of Sebastopol 
and the burning soil of India have borne wit- 
ness to the like noble self-denial and devotion 
on the part of the richer classes ; many a gal- 
lant and noble fellow, of rank and estate, 
having risked his life, or lost it, in one or other 
of those fields of action, in the service of his 
country. 

Nor have the wealthier classes been undis- 
tinguished in the more peaceful pursuits of 



98 How to Get o?i in the World. 

philosophy and science. Take, for instance, the 
great names of Bacon, the father of modern 
philosophy, and of Worcester, Boyle, Caven- 
dish, Talbot and Rosse in science. The last 
named may be regarded as the great mechanic 
of the peerage ; a man who, if he had not been 
born a peer, would probably have taken 
the highest rank as an inventor. So thorough 
was his knowledge of smith-work that he is said 
to have been pressed on one occasion to accept 
the foremanship of a large workshop, by a 
manufacturer to whom his rank was unknown. 
The great Rosse telescope, of his own fabri- 
cation, is certainly the most extraordinary 
instrument of the kind that has yet been con- 
structed. 

We are apt to think that the wealthy classes 
in America are addicted to idleness, but, in pro- 
portion to their number, they are as usefully in- 
dustrious as those who are forced to work for a 
living. The Adams family, of Massachusetts, for 
more than a century, has been even more distin- 
guished for statesmanship and intellect than for 
great wealth. TheVanderbilts have all been hard 
workers and able business men. George Gould 
seems to be quite as great a financier as his 
remarkable father. The Astors are distin- 
guished for their literary ability; William 
Waldorf Astor and his cousin, John Jacob, are 
authors of great merit. The Lees, of Virginia, 
have ever been distinguished for energy, intel- 
lect, and a capacity for hard work. And so we 
might cite a hundred examples to prove that 



We Must Help Ourselves. 99 

even in America, want is not the greatest 
incentive to effort. 

The indefatigable industry of Lord Brough- 
am has become almost proverbial. His pub- 
lic labors extended over a period of up- 
ward of sixty years, during which he ranged 
over many fields — of law, literature, politics, 
and science — and achieved distinction in them 
all. How he contrived it, has been to 
many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel 
Romilly was requested to undertake some new 
work, he excused himself by saying that he had 
no time ; " but," he added, "go with it to that 
fellow Brougham, he seems to have time 
for everything." The secret of it was, that he 
never left a minute unemployed ; withal he 
possessed a constitution of iron. tVhen arrived 
at an age at which most men would have retired 
from the world to enjoy their hard-earned lei- 
sure, perhaps to cloze away their time in an easy 
chair, Lord Brougham commenced and prose- 
cuted a series of elaborate investigations as to 
the laws of Light, and he submitted the results 
to the most scientific audiences that Paris and 
London could muster. About the same time, he 
was passing through the press his admirable 
sketches of the " Men of Science and Literature 
of theReign of George III.," and taking his full 
share of the law business and the political dis- 
cussions in the House of Lords. Sydney Smith 
once recommended him to confine himself to only 
the transaction of so much business as three 
strong men could get through. But such was 



ioo How to Get on in the World. 

Brougham's love of work — long become a 
habit — that no amount of application seems to 
have been too great for him ; and such was his 
love of excellence that it has been said of him 
that if his station in life had been only that 
of a shoeblack, he would never have rested 
satisfied until he had become the best shoe- 
black in England. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SUCCESSFUL FARMING. 

According to Holy Writ, man's first calling 
was agriculture, or, perhaps, horticulture would 
better express it. Adam was placed in the 
Garden to till and care for it ; and even after 
he was driven from that blissful abode and 
compelled to live by the sweat of his brow, he 
had to go back to the earth from which his 
body was made to sustain the life breathed into 
it by Jehovah. But the young men of to-day ? 
and it is much to be regretted, regard farming 
life with more and more disfavor. To be sure, 
the greatest fortunes have not been accumulated 
in farming, but this book will not have accom- 
plished its purpose if it has failed to point out 
that lives can be eminently successful without 
the accumulation of great wealth. 

Before proceeding further, let us state a 
truth which will be convincing to every reader 
who knows anything at all about the careers 
of successful men. It is not a little remark- 
able that the most successful preachers, lawyers, 
doctors, merchants, and mechanics have had 
their earliest training on the farm. 

As we have before said, the successful life is 
the one that is happiest and most useful in 
itself, and which produces happiness and use- 
fulness in others. And as the majority of 
workers in most civilized lands are directly 

IOI 



102 How to Get on in the World. 

connected with agriculture, and as all suste- 
nance for our daily lives, and all wealth, save 
the limited amount that comes from the sea, is 
directly traceable to the land, it follows that 
agriculture is the most important of all callings 
— and I would say the most honorable, were it 
not that every calling is honorable that requires 
for its success energy, industry, intelligence, 
and honesty. 

The United States, above all countries in 
the world at this time, indeed, above all coun- 
tries of which history furnishes any record, has 
been more dependent for its growth and success 
on agriculture than on any other vocation. 
While our manufacturing enterprises rank us 
next to England among the world's manufactur- 
ing producers, yet more than nine-tenths of our 
export trade with foreign countries is in agri- 
cultural products, such as : wheat, corn, cotton, 
tobacco, and beef and pork, which, under the 
present system of farming, are as much agri- 
cultural productions as the grain on which the 
ox and the hog are fattened. 

In agriculture, or farming, is included the bulk 
of the balance of labor not covered by the build- 
ing and mechanical trades, and the employ- 
ments growing out of and connected with them. 

Good farming is dependent on good machin- 
ery, including tools, and on good buildings. 
Doubtless, in its infancy, neither was used, 
even the hoe and hut being unknown. Among 
the first records of producing from the soil, to 
be found in any detail, is the raising of corn in 



Successful Farming. 103 

Chaldea and Egypt. Sowing seed in the valley 
of the Nile, and turning on the swine to tread 
it into the soil, was one of the methods in use, 
and every process of planting and harvesting 
w 7 as of the simplest. As population grew more 
dense, and other climates and soils were occu- 
pied, better processes were developed, and more 
varied were the productions. Animal power 
and rude tools were gradually brought into use, 
and about 1000 years before Christ " a plow 
with a beam, share and handles " is mentioned. 
Then agriculture is spoken of as being in a 
flourishing condition, and artificial drainage 
was resorted to. Grecian farming in the days 
of its prosperity attained, in some districts, a 
creditable advancement, and the implements in 
use were, in principle, similar to many of 
modern construction. Horses, cattle, swine, 
sheep, and poultry were bred and continually 
improved by importations from other countries. 
Manuring of the fields was practiced ; ground 
was often plowed three times before seeding ; 
and sub-soiling and other mixings of soils were 
in some cases employed. A great variety of 
fruit was successfully cultivated, and good 
farming was a source of pride to the people. 
The Romans considered it, as Washington did, 
the most honorable and useful occupation. 
Each Roman citizen was allotted a piece of 
land of from five to fifty acres by the govern- 
ment, and in after times, when annexations 
were made, up to five hundred acres were 
allotted. The land w T as generally closely and 



104 How to Get o?i in the World. 

carefully cultivated, and the most distinguished 
citizens considered it their greatest compliment 
to be called good farmers. The Roman Senate 
had twenty-eight books, written by a Cartha- 
ginian farmer, translated for the use of the 
people. The general sentiment among the 
more intelligent was to hold small farms and 
till them well ; to protect their fields from 
winds and storms, and to defer building or 
incurring avoidable expense until fully able. 

Thirteen centuries were required to improve 
upon the plowing of two-thirds of an acre, which 
in Roman parlance was a jugarum, necessitat- 
ing the labor of two days. The eighteenth 
century made great improvements in the modes 
of farming, especially in the matter of tools, 
machinery, and farm literature ; while this 
century has made marked progress in the rais- 
ing and harvesting of crops, buildings for farm 
purposes, and a remarkable improvement in 
horses, cattle, and other farm stock. Salt was 
found to be a fertilizer, and vegetation proven 
to be more beneficial on land in summer than 
leaving it bare and unoccupied, as had former- 
ly been the theory. Manures were found to 
be of increased value when mixed, and guanos 
w 7 ere introduced. 

The Germans and French began improve- 
ment in farming before the English, and have 
well sustained it. 

Since the primitive years of the United 
States, her agriculture has attained unparal- 
leled growth, and remains her chief pride and 



Successful Farming. 105 

revenue. Those were the } T ears that tried the 
farmers' souls. They had everything to learn ; 
forests to clear off; seeds and conveniences to 
secure ; roads to open ; new grounds to culti- 
vate ; buildings to erect, and hostile Indians to 
watch and fight. South Carolina was the first 
State to organize an agricultural society, which 
was accomplished in 1784. Now nearly all the 
counties of every State have similar organiza- 
tions, besides those of the States themselves. 
That they are materially and socially beneficial 
is unquestioned, barring the effect of horse-racing 
and its betting accompaniment. 

Among the more valuable auxiliaries of the 
farmer are the agricultural journals of the 
country, for which hundreds of thousands of 
dollars are annually expended. With few 
exceptions they fill the measure of their publi- 
cation, and the information they furnish, if 
properly and judiciously used, can have none 
but a healthy effect. While nine out of every 
ten farmers doubtless do not do all, nor as well 
as they know, the benefit and incitement of 
knowing more can but be beneficial. It is as 
a bill of fare at an eating-house — while the 
consumption of every article named therein 
would be death, the large selection at hand 
renders possible a wholesome meal. 

Mr. Joshua Hill in his work entitled 
"Thought and Thrift "—which, by the way, 
would be more valuable if less partisan — has 
this to say in connection with the business and 
courage required in agriculture : 



106 How to Get on in the World. 

" Neglect of aid that may be had in procuring 
the best results of labor, and inattention in ap- 
plying it, are faults possessed by many. Every 
man is by nature possessed of abilities of some 
sort ; and if he has found the right way to use 
them, he alone is to blame if he does not prop- 
erly apply them with a view to their highest 
and best results. There is no use for a rule if 
there be no measures to take ; there is no use 
for a reason if men do not heed it. Human 
experiences are full of wise counsel for those 
who desire to learn and do so ; but for those 
who close their eyes and wait for results with- 
out effort, the records containing them would 
just as well never have been written. There is 
an absolutely fixed law of nature that denies to 
man anything that he does not receive from 
some kind of labor, except to such as live by 
favor and robbery, and not by work. There 
are many examples of those who are said to 
1 live by their wits,' but the problem as to how 
it is done may never be solved. Nor does it 
need to be solved, as no man should justly ex- 
pect to enjoy anything which has not been 
procured by his own labor. Those who most 
appreciate the comforts of life are those who 
create them for themselves. In knowing how 
what we have is obtained, lies its chief value to 
us. Men naturally take pride in the possession 
of a treasure in proportion to the trouble in- 
volved in securing it. Whoever would thrive 
in his farming must bend his whole will and 
purpose to it. Nothing which can be done to-day 



Successful Farming. 107 

should be put off till to-morrow. To-morrow 
may never come, and should it come, may not 
changed conditions and difficulties render set 
tasks impossible ? Under some circumstances 
men trust to fortune, without serious errors, 
in postponing the execution of appointed tasks. 
The maxim that ' procrastination is the thief of 
time ' points a moral implied in itself, and is 
unquestionably true in a majority of instances. 
Men of business are often careful in some 
matters, to the neglect of others more import- 
ant. Different men have different methods of 
business, which, considering differences of con- 
stitution and manner of application, is only 
natural ; not dangerous, but rather beneficial. 
No two men go to work in the same way, not- 
withstanding they may have both learned of the 
same teacher, or been instructed upon the same 
principle. The greater trouble lies in improper 
application and inattention to details. Trifles 
make up the sum of life, as cents make dollars. 
An over-anxious man, he who makes great 
haste to be rich, seldom prospers long in any 
undertaking. Possibilities, not probabilities, 
should be the guide. A sanguine disposition 
may or may not be useful in business. Dis- 
appointment often follows sanguine hopes. A 
good business man calculates closely ; does not 
allow anticipation to run away with his judg- 
ment, nor imagine that any good result can 
follow a false move. 

" For these reasons, the farmer needs to think 
and to reason more : to attend more strictlv to 



io8 How to Get on in the World. 

business rules and methods, and to exercise a 
greater courage and persistency in applying 
them. 'Work while it is day/ says the 
Scriptures, ' for the night cometh when no man 
can work.' Command the present moment 
that shakes gold from its wings. That the 
future may bring bread for his family, the 
farmer sows seed in confidence, and awaits 
the harvest in hope. But if he fail to do what 
is necessary to a proper yield from his crop, he 
has made a failure of the talents committed to 
him. Men must acknowledge the responsi- 
bility that rests upon them, and meet it with 
that true courage which directs them aright. 
The lack of knowledge does not imply lack of 
ability to think and to reason. All men, unless 
of idiotic, impaired, or diseased minds, are 
possessed of the faculty of reason, and should 
use it for the purpose for which it was given — 
to supply needed helps to our temporal exist- 
once. From thought comes ability, and from 
ability system, courage, attention, application, 
the most valuable aids to every man of busi- 
ness. 

" But in farming as in every other calling the 
first great requisite is self-reliance. The man 
who depends upon his neighbors, as JEsop 
illustrates in one of his fables, never has his 
work done. But when he says that he will do it 
himself on a certain day, then it is prudent for 
the bird that has been nesting in his grain- 
field to change her habitation." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AS TO PUBLIC LIFE. 

The relations of the citizen to the state, and 
of the state to the citizen, are reciprocal. 
Every man who becomes a member of an 
established government, whether it be voluntary, 
as where an oath of allegiance is taken to obey 
the laws, or involuntary, as by birth, which is 
the case of a majority of all citizens, he surren- 
ders certain natural rights in consideration of 
the protection which the government throws 
about him. 

In a state of nature, man is free to do as he 
pleases, without any recognition of the rights 
of others ; and his power to have his own way 
is entirely dependent on the physical strength 
and courage which he has to enforce it. This 
is why, in a savage state, war is the almost con- 
stant business of the men, and the strongest 
and the bravest of the lawless mob, tribe, or 
clan usually becomes leader. 

When through either of these agencies a 
man finds himself a member of an established 
government, he owes to that government im- 
plicit obedience to its laws, in consideration of 
the protection to life and property which that 
government throws about him. 

In consideration of the protection which the 
banded many, known as the state, gives to the 
109 



no How to Get on in the World \ 

individual, the individual pledges implicit 
obedience to the laws of the state. 

Horace says : Dulci et decorum est pro patria 
mori — meaning that it is brave and right to 
die for one's country. Old Dr. Sam Johnson, 
like his successor, Carlyle, was apt to sneer at 
the grander impulses of humanity. He said 
on one occasion : " Patriotism is the last resort 
of a scoundrel." And yet we know that the 
noblest characters of all history have been the 
men who felt, with Horace, that it was noble to 
die for one's country. 

Americans, perhaps more than any other 
people in the world at this time, have an 
intense appreciation of this spirit of patriotism. 
From the days of the Revolution to the present 
time, our most prominent and most respected 
characters have been the men who, in the 
forum or in the field, have devoted their lives 
to the preservation and elevation of the Re- 
public. 

Public life has its rewards, but they rarely 
come to the honest man in the form of dollars. 
Franklin, Jackson, Taylor, Johnson, Grant, 
Garfield, and Lincoln were all the sons of poor 
men, and they died poor themselves ; but who 
can say that their lives were not grandly suc- 
cessful. 

An interest in politics should be the duty of 
everyone, but the young man who enters public 
life for the sake of the money he may accumu- 
late from office, starts out as a traitor to his 
country and an ingrate to his fellows. 



As to Pic b lie Life. in 

Public life should be an unselfish life. The 
service of the public requires the strongest 
bodies, the clearest brains, and the purest 
hearts, and the man who devotes his life 
to this great purpose must find his reward in a 
duty well performed, rather than in the finan- 
cial emoluments of office. 

Duty is the spirit of patriotism, and while 
this spirit should run through every act in 
every calling, it must particularly distinguish 
the man who has entered the public service as 
a soldier or civil official. It is duty that leads 
the soldier to face hardships and death without 
flinching, and the same high impulse should 
stimulate the conduct where there is no physi- 
cal danger. 

Samuel Smiles, to whom we are indebted for 
much that is valuable in this work, has the 
following to say in this connection about duty : 

" Duty is a thing that is due, and must be 
paid by every man who would avoid present 
discredit and eventual moral insolvency. It is 
an obligation — a debt — which can only be dis- 
charged by voluntary effort and resolute action 
in the affairs of life. 

" Duty embraces man's whole existence. It 
begins in the home, where there is the duty 
which children owe to their parents on the one 
hand, and the duty which parents owe to their 
children on the other. There are, in like man- 
ner, the respective duties of husbands and 
wives, of masters and servants ; while outside 
the home there are the duties which men and 



H2 How to Get on in the World, 

'women owe to each other as friends and neigh- 
bors, as employers and employed, as governors 
and governed. 

" ' Render, therefore/ says St. Paul, ' to all 
their dues : tribute to whom tribute is due ; 
•custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; 
honor to whom honor. Owe no man anything, 
but to love one another ; for he that loveth 
another hath fulfilled the law.' 

" Thus duty rounds the whole of life, from 
our entrance into it until our exit from it — 
duty to superiors, duty to inferiors, and duty 
to equals — duty to man, and duty to God. 
Wherever there is power to use or to direct, 
there is duty. For we are but as stewards, 
appointed to employ the means entrusted to us 
for our own and for others' good. 

" The abiding sense of duty is the very crown 
of character. It is the upholding law of man 
in his highest attitudes. Without it, the indi- 
vidual totters and falls before the first puff of 
adversity or temptation ; whereas, inspired by 
it, the weakest becomes strong and full of 
courage. ' Duty/ says Mrs. Jameson, ' is the 
-cement which binds the whole moral edifice 
together ; without which, all power, goodness, 
intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have 
no permanence ; but all the fabric of existence 
•crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at 
last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at 
our own desolation.' 

" Duty is based upon a sen.^e of justice — 
justice inspired by love, which is the most 



As to Public Life, 115 

perfect form of goodness. Duty is not a senti- 
ment, but a principle pervading the life : and 
it exhibits itself in conduct and in acts, which 
are mainly determined by man's conscience and 
free will." 

Sir John Packington, one of England's most 
famous men, said in speaking of his public 
life: 

" I am indebted for whatever measure of suc- 
cess I have attained in my public life, to a com- 
bination of moderate abilities with honesty of 
intention, firmness of purpose, and steadiness 
of conduct. If I were to offer advice to any 
young man anxious to make himself useful in 
public life, I would sum up the results of my 
experience in three short rules — rules so simple, 
that any man may understand them, and so- 
easy that any man may act upon them. My 
first rule will be, leave it to others to judge of 
what duties you are capable, and for what 
position you are fitted ; but never refuse to give 
your services in whatever capacity it may be 
the opinion of others who are competent to 
judge that you may benefit your neighbors and 
your country. My second rule is, when you 
agree to undertake public duties, concentrate 
every energy and faculty in your possession 
with the determination to discharge those duties 
to the best of your ability. Lastly, I would 
counsel you that, in deciding on the line which 
you will take in public affairs, you should be 
guided in your decision by that which, after 
mature deliberation, you believe to be right. 



H4 How to Get o?i i?i the World. 

and not by that which, in the passing hour, 
may happen to be fashionable or popular." 

Another author equally eminent writes in the 
same vein : 

" The first great duty of every citizen is that 
of an abiding love for his country. This is one of 
the native instincts of the noble heart. History 
tells of many a devoted hero, reared under an 
oppressive despotism, and groaning under unjust 
exactions, with little in the character of his 
ruler to excite anything like generous enthu- 
siasm, who yet has shed his blood and given up 
his treasures in willing sacrifice for his country's 
good. In a country such as this we live in, it 
is the duty of every man to be a patriot, and 
to love and serve it with an affection that is 
commensurate both with the priceless cost of 
her liberties, and the greatness of her civil and 
religious privileges. Indeed, however it may 
be in other lands, in this one the youth may be 
said to draw in the love of country with his 
native air ; and it is justly taken for granted 
that all will seek and maintain her interests, as 
that the child shall love its mother, on whose 
bosom it has been cradled, and of whose life it 
is a part. 

" In no other country more than this is it im- 
portant that all should rightly understand and 
faithfully fulfill the duties of citizenship. While 
ignorance is the natural stronghold of tyranny, 
knowledge is the very throne of civil liberty. 
It is the interest of despotism to foster a blind, 
unreasoning obedience to arbitrary law ; but 



As to Public Life. 115 

where, as with us, almost the humblest has a 
voice in the administration of public affairs, 
more depends upon the enlightened sentiments 
of the masses than upon even the skill of tem- 
porary rulers, or the character of existing laws." 

A generation ago, when the integrity of the 
Union was threatened, the rich and the poor, 
the young and the old, particularly in what 
were known as the Free States, gave up all for 
the defence of the Republic. It should be 
said, in justice to those who fought on the 
opposite side, that no matter how much mis- 
taken, they were in their own hearts as honest, 
and by their heroic sacrifices proved themselves 
to be as brave and unselfish, as the gallant men 
who won in the appeal to arms. 

If to-day the honor or the integrity of the 
Republic were assailed, every man capable of 
bearing arms, irrespective of the past differ- 
ences of themselves or their fathers, would 
answer the country's call in teeming millions, 
and prove the truth of the Latin poet's adage, 
that it is right and noble to die for one's country. 

A manly people should cultivate a manly 
spirit, and be prepared, if need be, to defend 
their rights by force, but in the better day, 
whose light is coming, we believe that nobler 
and more equitable means of adjusting internal 
and international differences can be found than 
by an appeal to arms. 

Believing then that every young man who is 
worthy his American citizenship would will- 
ingly risk his life in defence of his nation's 



n6 How to Get on in the World, 

flag — which, after all, is simply the emblem of 
what his nation stands for — he should be will- 
ing, if duty requires it, to serve his country 
with equal fidelity in times of peace. 

It is to be regretted that men of the stamp 
of those who gave their lives or risked them 
and have poured out their wealth with un- 
stinted hand when the life of the Eepublic was 
in danger, should, in days of peace, regard 
" politics " — which means an interest in public 
affairs — with something like contempt. 

It may be argued that politics has fallen into 
the hands of a rough and unprincipled class, 
who make it a profession for the sake of the 
gain it offers. To a certain extent this is true ; 
but the men who are responsible for this state 
of affairs are not the professional politicians, but 
the good citizens, who are in the majority, and 
who could control, if they would, but who un pa- 
triotically neglect their duty to the public, or 
ignore it in the presence of their individual 
interests. 

One of the best signs of the times is the fact 
that civil service has come into our politics to 
stay. Through this service, the young aspirant 
for office, irrespective of his politics, stands an 
examination before impartial commissioners, 
and is rated according to his qualifications. 
Once he enters the public service, he cannot be 
discharged except for incapacity, and this must 
be proven before a proper tribunal. 

The rewards of public office, excepting in a 
few cases where the positions depend upon the 



As to Public Life, 117 

votes of the people, are never great. And, 
unfortunately, under our system the aspirant 
for an elective office usually spends as much 
as the office will pay him during his term, if he 
depends upon its honest emoluments. 

But to the young man who is not ambitious 
and who w 7 ill live contentedly a life of routine 
with a limited compensation, a public life has 
many advantages. The salary continues, irre- 
spective of the weather or seasons, and there is 
connected with the place a certain respect. No 
matter how humble the position of a man in 
the public service, a certain dignity must always 
attach to him who is at once a servant and c 
representative of the people. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NEED OF CONSTANT EFFORT. 

It matters not what talent or genius a man 
may possess, no natural gift can compensate for 
hard, persistent toil. The Romans had a 
maxim as true to-day as it was when first 
uttered : " Labor omnia vincit" Toil conquers 
all things. The earliest Christians lived in 
communities and had all things in common. 
One of their precepts — a precept up to which 
all lived — was : " Laborare est orare," To work 
is to pray. 

Someone has said that the difference between 
the genius and the ordinary man is that the 
genius has a tireless capacity for patient, hard 
work, while the other regards effort as a painful 
exaction, and is ever looking forward to the 
time when he can rest. 

It is encouraging to know that the world's 
hardest workers have lived the longest lives. 
In this alone, labor is its own reward ; but 
enduring success never came to a poor man 
without an unflagging patience and an unceas- 
ing toil. 

Honorable industry, says one, travels the 
same road with duty ; and Providence has 
closely linked both with happiness. The gods, 
says the poet, have placed labor and toil on the 
way leading to the Elysian fields. Certain it 
is that no bread eaten by man is so sweet as 
118 



The Need of Constant Effort. 119 

that earned by his own labor, whether bodily 
or mental. By labor the earth has been sub- 
dued, and man redeemed from barbarism ; nor 
has a single step in civilization been made 
without it. Labor is not only a necessity and 
a duty, but a blessing ; only the idler feels it 
to be a curse. The duty of work is written on 
the thews ana muscles of the limbs, the mechan- 
ism of tne nand, the nerves and lobes of the 
brain — the sum of whose healthy action is sat- 
isfaction and enjoyment. In the school of 
labor is taught the best practical wisdom ; nor 
is a life of manual employment, as we shall 
hereafter find, incompatible with high mental 
culture. 

Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better 
the strength and the weakness belonging to the 
lot of labor, stated the result of his experience 
to be, that work, even the hardest, is full of 
pleasure and materials for self-improvement. 
He held honest labor to be the best of teachers, 
and that the school of toil is the noblest of 
schools — save only the Christian one ; that it 
is a school in which the ability of being useful 
is imparted, the spirit of independence learned, 
and the habit of persevering effort acquired. 
He was even of opinion that the training of 
the mechanic — by the exercise which it gives 
to his observant faculties, from his daily deal- 
ing with things actual and practical, and the 
close experience of life which he acquires — 
better fits a man for picking his way along the 
journey of life, and is more favorable to his 



120 How to Get on i7i the World. 

growth as a man, emphatically speaking, than 
the training afforded by any other condition. 

Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was 
one of the most industrious of men ; and the 
story of his life proves, what all experience 
confirms, that it is not the man of the great- 
est natural vigor and capacity who achieves 
the highest results, but he who employs his 
powers with the greatest industry and the most 
carefully disciplined skill — the skill that comes 
by labor, application, and experience. Many 
men in his time knew far more than Watt, but 
none labored so assiduously as he did to turn all 
that he did know to useful practical purposes. 
He was, above all things, most persevering in 
the pursuit of facts. He cultivated carefully 
that habit of active attention on which all the 
higher working qualities of the mind mainly 
depend. Indeed, Mr. Edgeworth entertained 
the opinion that the difference of intellect in 
men depends more upon the early cultivation 
of this habit of attention, than upon any great 
disparity between the powers of one individual 
and another. 

Arkwright, one of the world's greatest 
mechanics, and the inventor of the spinning 
jenny, was famed for his unceasing industry. 

Like most of our great mechanicians, he 
sprang from the ranks. He was born in Preston 
in 1732. His parents were very poor, and he was 
the youngest of thirteen children. He was never 
at school ; the only education he received he 
gave to himself ; and to the last he was only 



The Need of Constant Effort. 12 r 

able to write with difficulty. When a boy, he 
was apprenticed to a barber, and after learning 
the business, he set up for himself in Bolton, 
where he occupied an underground cellar, over 
which he put up the sign, " Come to the 
subterraneous barber — he shaves for a penny." 
The other barbers found their customers leav- 
ing them, and reduced their prices to his 
standard, when Arkwright, determined to push 
his trade, announced his determination to give 
"A clean shave for a half-penny." 

At the close of his life, John Jacob Astor 
was the wealthiest man in the United States, 
and the immense fortune he left has been largely 
increased through his wise investments and the 
habits of business which he seems to have 
transmitted with his fortune to his descendants. 

His life is a most interesting one, particularly 
to the young man who stands facing the world 
without friends or fortune to aid him. But 
young Astor had one quality to start with, a 
quality which success never lessened, and that 
was the capacity for unceasing industry. 

He was born of peasant parents in the village 
of Waldorf, near the great university town of 
Heidelberg in Germany. When sixteen years 
of age he was crowded out of the hive by in- 
creasing brothers and sisters, and without 
education or experience, he started out to make 
his way in the world. 

In the days of his great prosperity, he used 
to tell, with delight mingled with sadness, of 
the day when he left father, and mother, and 



122 How to Get on in the World. 

home, which he was never to see together again. 
He used to say : " I had only two dollars in 
my pocket, and all my clothes were tied up in 
a handkerchief fastened at the end of a stick. 
When I had climbed the high hill above the 
village, I sat down to rest my heart rather than 
my feet, and to look back at the loved scenes 
of my childhood. Before leaving home it was 
decided that I should make my way to London 
— then the city of promise to many young 
Germans. While I sat there, I made three 
resolutions, which during my life I have never 
broken. I had never gambled, but I had 
known others to do so, and my first resolve was 
not to follow their example. The second reso- 
lution was to be strictly honest in all my deal- 
ings, and this I have tried to adhere to. The 
third resolution was quite as important as the 
other two together ; it was that so long as God 
gave me health and strength I should be unceas- 
ingly industrious." 

John Jacob Astor, as a man, faithfully car- 
ried out the resolutions he made as a boy, arid 
the world knows the consequences. 

When the impartial historian comes to write 
the life of Horace Greeley, no matter how much 
he may object to his policies and politics, he 
will give him credit for honesty, courage, per- 
severance, and an industry that knew no fatigue. 

While barely in his teens, young Greeley, 
whose father was making a desperate effort 
to support a large family on a poor farm 
in New Hampshire, started in to work for 



The Need of Constant Effort. 123 

himself. His early education consisted of a few 
winter terms in a common school. Before he 
was seventeen he had learned the printer's 
trade, and then resolved not only to support 
himself, but to help his parents. Realizing his 
want of education, he devoted every minute he 
could spare from work or sleep to study. 

Speaking of these early days, Mr. Greeley 
said: 

" There was many a heavy load placed on 
my shoulders, but I staggered on and bore it as 
best I could. Many an uncongenial task was 
forced upon me, but I can honestly say I never 
shirked it. If I have succeeded in my chosen 
profession, it has not been due to my early ad- 
vantages, for I had none, but to my strong be- 
lief that patient industry would triumph in the 
end." 

When Horace Greeley was twenty years of 
age he was working in a printing office in Erie, 
Pennsylvania, and determined to better his 
fortunes by coming to New York. He had 
saved up one hundred and twenty dollars, and 
of this he sent one hundred to his father, and 
"with the rest he turned his face to the great 
city, about six hundred miles away. He trav- 
eled the entire distance on foot, and reached 
New York with fifteen dollars, the whole trip 
having cost him but five. 

Poorly clad, tall, gawky, and green-looking, 
he entered the city where he had neither friend 
nor acquaintance. For weeks he tramped the 
streets, looking vainly for work, his cash 



124 How to Get on in the World. 

gradually growing less, but his spirits never 
failing. At length he found employment at his 
trade, where his integrity and unceasing in- 
dustry soon made him conspicuous. Step by 
step, he worked his way up, never forgetting the 
poor family in Vermont, till at length he was 
able to establish the New York Tribune, which 
survives as a monument of his perseverance 
and industry. Although his early training was 
so defective, he gave every spare minute to 
study, and with such success that he became 
not only a great leader, but one of the most 
perfect masters of the English language. His 
name will long live after many writers and 
statesmen of greater pretensions are forgotten. 

As an example of what perseverance, forti- 
tude and energy will do, Horace Greeley's story 
of his own life should be studied by every 
ambitious young man. 

Horace Greeley never laid claim to physical 
courage, but he had that higher courage and 
industry without which enduring success is 
impossible. In speaking of this admirable 
quality, a famous author says : 

" The greater part of the courage that is 
needed in the world is not of an heroic kind. 
Courage may be displayed in everyday life as 
well as on historic fields of action. There needs, 
for example, the common courage to be honest 
— the courage to resist temptation — the courage 
to speak the truth — the courage to be what we 
really are, and not to pretend to be w T hat we 
are not — the courage to live honestly within 



The Need of Constant Effort. 125 

our own means, and not dishonestly upon the 
means of others. 

"A great deal of the unhappiness, and much 
of the vice, of the world is owing to weakness 
and indecision of purpose — in other words, to 
lack of courage and want of industry. Men 
may know what is right, and yet fail to exer- 
cise the courage to do it ; they may understand 
the duty they have to do, but will not summon 
up the requisite resolution to perform it. The 
weak and undisciplined man is at the mercy of 
every temptation ; he cannot say ' no,' but falls 
before it. And if his companionship be bad, 
he will be all the easier led away by bad exam- 
ple into wrong-doing. 

" Nothing can be more certain than that the 
character can only be sustained and strength- 
ened by its own energetic action. The will, 
which is the central force of character, must be 
trained to habits of decision — otherwise it will 
neither be able to resist evil nor to follow good. 
Decision gives the power of standing firmly, 
when to yield, however slightly, might be only 
the first step in a downhill course to ruin. 

" Calling upon others for help in forming a 
decision is worse than useless. A man must so 
train his habits as to rely upon his own powers 
and depend upon his own courage in moments 
of emergency. Plutarch tells of a king of 
Macedon who, in the midst of an action, with- 
drew into the adjoining town under pretence of 
sacrificing to Hercules ; whilst his opponent 
Emilius, at the same time that he implored the 



126 How to Get on in the World. 

Divine aid, sought for victory sword in hand, 
and won the battle. And so it ever is in the 
actions of daily life. 

" Many are the valiant purposes formed, that 
end merely in words ; deeds intended, that are 
never done ; designs projected, that are never 
begun ; and all for want of a little courageous 
decision. Better far the silent tongue but the 
eloquent deed. For in life, and in business, 
dispatch is better than discourse ; and the 
shortest of all is Doing. ' In matters of great 
concern, and which must be done/ says Tillot- 
son, 'there is no surer argument of a weak 
mind than irresolution — to be undetermined 
when the case is so plain and the necessity so 
urgent. To be always intending to live a new 
life, but never to find time to set about it — this 
is as if a man should put off eating and drink- 
ing and sleeping from one day to another, until 
he is starved and destroyed.' " 



CHAPTER XV. 

SOME OF LABOR'S COMPENSATIONS. 

Although it is better for every young man, 
if possible, to adhere to one thing, yet, as we 
shall see when we come to treat of the life of 
that remarkable man Peter Cooper, change does 
not necessarily mean vacillation. For the mere 
sake of consistency a man would be foolish who 
neglected a good chance to succeed in another 
field. Edison started life as a newsboy, but it 
would be folly to say that he should have stuck 
to that very respectable, but not usually lucra- 
tive occupation. Morse, the inventor of the 
telegraph, was an artist till middle life. Alex- 
ander T. Stewart and James Gordon Bennett, 
the one a most successful journalist, and the 
other the greatest merchant of his day, began 
life as school-teachers. And so we might con- 
tinue the list ; but even these examples do not 
warrant the belief that a change of calling is 
necessary to success, but rather that the change 
may increase the chances. As a rule, however, 
the changes have been forced by unforeseen 
circumstances, of which these strong men were 
quick to see the advantages. 

In beginning the life journey, as in starting 

out on a day's journey, it is of great importance 

to have a destination in view. In every effort 

there should be kept in mind the end to be 

127 



128 How to Get o?i in the World. 

attained — an ideal, to achieve which every 
faculty must be enlisted. 

Men whose lives have been eminently suc- 
cessful tell us that their greatest reward was not 
found in the accomplishment of their life pur- 
pose, but in the slow, but certain advance made 
from day to day. 

The joy of travel does not lie in reaching 
the destination, but in the companions met 
with on the journey, the changing scenery 
through which the traveler passes, and even 
the inconveniences that break up the monotony 
of the ordinary routine life. It is so with our 
life-work. The cradle and the grave mark the 
beginning and the end of the journey, but the 
joy of living lies in the varied incident and 
effort to be met with between the two. 

It is well for us that this is so ; well for us 
that we do not have to wait for the reward till 
the end comes. 

We may, as in the cases named, change our 
means of travel, but so long as success is our 
purpose, it matters not so much what variation 
we may make in the route, when we seek to 
attain it. 

The old-fashioned country school debating 
societies had one subject that never lost its 
popularity, and on which the rural orators ex- 
hausted their eloquence and ingenuity : " He- 
solved, that there is more happiness in partici- 
pation than in anticipation." We doubt if any 
debating society ever settled the question, in a 
way that would be acceptable to all. As a rule 



Some of Labor's Compensations. 129 

the younger people decided, irrespective of the 
argument, that participation was the most 
desirable ; but the older people wisely shook 
their heads and took the other side of the 
case. 

Often when the end has been gained, it has 
been discovered that the reward was not worth 
the effort, and that the full compensation was 
gained in the peace, the regular habits, the 
health, and the sense of duty well-performed 
which kept up the hope and the strength during 
the long years of toil. 

There is a temperance in eating, as well as in 
drinking ; even honest labor when carried to> 
an excess that impairs the powers of mind and 
body, may be classed w T ith intemperance ; 
indeed, it should be a part of every youngs 
man's course of self-study to learn his own 
physical and mental limitations. 

There is everything in knowing how to work ? 
and in learning when to rest. One of the 
rewards of judicious labor, and by no means 
the least of them is — health. Health is not 
only essential to the happiness of ourselves and 
of those with whom we come into contact, but 
no permanent success can be won without it. 

Benjamin Franklin, himself a model of in- 
dustry and of good health, even in old age,, 
says : 

"I have always worked hard, but I have 
regarded as sinful the haste and toil that sap 
the health. There is reason why disease should 
seize on the idler, but the industrious man, 



130 How to Get on in the World. 

whose toil is well-regulated, should have no 
occasion for a physician, unless in case of 
accident. Labor, like virtue, is its own re- 
ward." 

In looking over the callings of people who 
have retained all their powers to an age so long 
beyond the allotted time as to seem phenomenal, 
there is not one case that we can recall where 
the life has not been distinguished for temper- 
ance, orderliness, and persistent but temperate 
industry. 

The health that waits upon labor is among 
its best results, as it must continue to be among 
its greatest blessings. More particularly is 
health to be derived from out-door employment, 
as life on the farm and an active participation 
in its many and varied labors. Physical exer- 
cise is essential to health, under any and all 
circumstances, whether it be in the nature of 
labor or recreation. It must be borne in mind, 
however, that in labor are to be found the 
surest correctives of many abuses of health, as 
bringing into play influences of the more satis- 
factory sort upon the mind as considered in con- 
trast to idleness. Idleness is the parent of 
many vices, some one says, and it is true. The 
freedom from the annoying reflection that one 
is making no use of physical or mental abilities 
to secure protection from want and suffering, 
sweetens labor and gives it a value which all 
true men must appreciate and carefully con- 
sider. How often have the wearied journalist 
and accountant, tired out in body and mind at 



Some of Labor" s Compensations. 131 

the desk of unremitting application, found, in 
the life and labor of the farm and shop, relief 
and a return to the blessings of health. There 
are other occupations and employments just as 
necessary, but many of them are pursued under 
considerations not leading to, but rather away 
from, health. Any one, however, may take 
from business enough time for rest and health- 
ful exercise. It is in purifying and driving 
away from man the tendencies to evil that, in 
idleness, prey too continually and strongly upon 
him, and which he cannot long successfully re- 
sist, that labor possesses its greatest benefit. 
The atmosphere of diligent labor usefully direct- 
ed is always of a healthy nature. Into it cannot 
enter the many foes that assail the idle, who 
have not the shield of protection that labor 
gives to all who enter its hallowed gateway. 
Labor dignifies and ennobles when in modera- 
tion ; it permits the enjoyment of comforts and 
luxuries, and gives to home its sacred charm ; it 
dashes away the bitter cup of poverty, and 
gives instead the nourishing and acceptable 
food of contentment ; it dispels dread conceits 
of coming evil, and dries the tears of the afflict- 
ed. Labor is man's heaven-born heritage in 
exchange for the curse of disobedience, and yet 
men are ungrateful and disposed to quarrel 
with their truest friends. What truer and 
better friend can anyone possess than useful 
labor, the key that unlocks the casket of wis- 
dom and exposes to our startled gaze the trea- 
sures that lie within ? For every honest and 



132 How to Get on in the World, 

determined end of labor there is sure reward. 
" There is no reward without toil " is a proverb 
as old as history and as true to-day as when it 
first found lodgment in the minds and hearts of 
men. The faithful servant of labor hears in 
every blow he strikes the sure sound of the 
power committed to him and which will bring 
him the fine gold of merited approval. 

The health in labor, considered in all of the 
relations attaching to it, further brings a com- 
fort and satisfaction which cannot be too highly 
estimated. The surest remedy that can be ap- 
plied, when men are suffering from defeat in 
business and the attendant consequences, is 
renewed and persistent labor. Who can measure 
the value of labor ? It is a possession that 
cannot be stolen, and only ceases to serve when 
men, from exhausted energies or enfeebled age, 
can no longer command it. From the begin- 
ning to the end of life it waits upon us, and 
whoever will use it will not be deprived of its 
wonderful and magnificent bounties. 

As labor is man's greatest blessing, so is in- 
dolence his greatest curse. As labor is health, 
so indolence is disease. Man in a condition of 
idleness is about as useless a thing as is to be 
found in nature. He prefers to live by some 
one else's labor. The world owes him a living 
and he manages somehow to get it. But he is 
an industrious collector, although he would 
walk a mile to get around work. He attaches 
himself, like the mistletoe, to w T hoever will sup- 
port him. He is a true parasite. His tongue 



Some of Labor* s Compensations, 133 

has but little end to it. It wags from morning 
to night ; invents seemingly plausible theories 
•f work, but never attempts them. He is full 
of advice to ~dl who will listen. Can such a 
man be healthy? He cannot enjoy good 
health because he is too lazy to do so. No way 
has as yet been found to make him healthy and 
put him to work. He cannot be got rid of. 
People who labor and who are compelled to 
help this poor creature do not make much 
effort to turn him in the direction of labor. 
They are too busy to take any account of him ; 
•o he is left to his misery and poverty. He 
has not a grain of independence in his whole 
composition. He pines and dies at last, and the 
world is better for his being out of it. But 
like mushrooms, these people spring up. Many 
infest our large cities, and these are dignified 
by the city directories as " floating population. " 
The term is very nearly correct ; they float for 
% time upon the current, until borne away to 
another port where there is better and safer an- 
chorage. Where free lunches are abundant 
there the idler may be found. For this privi- 
lege he is sometimes obliged to do a little work. 
But how it grieves him ! His whole aim is to 
get drink, a little food, and less clothing. He 
»f course, uses tobacco ; but this he must ob- 
tain in some way that does not call for money, 
for of that he has none and never can have, 
unless he go to work — and this is highly im- 
probable. He has got to that point that lie 
•annot work. He is too unhealthy and his 



134 How to Get o?i in the World. 

influence is corrupting. Nobody will give him 
employment, so he must keep on to the end of 
the chapter. An even more disgusting speci- 
men is the idler who develops into a sneak thief 
and the more genteel sort of gentry — gamblers 
and workers of chances. These are, perhaps, 
to be included in the list of those who live by 
their w T its and not by any kind of labor. 

If there is any worse disease than idleness, it 
has not yet been discovered. Good and true 
men, who value the rewards of labor, look upon 
idleness with a dread that equals that of yellow 
fever ; for it is more general in its effects and 
more to be detested. While there may some- 
times be luck in leisure, indolence never pays. 

But the effects of persistent, systematic effort 
are not confined to ourselves ; the example is 
contagious and acts as a guide and a stimulus 
to others in the life battle. The good done and 
the help given to friends in this way are incal- 
culable, and are not the least of the rewards 
labor bestows before the end is attained. 

Dr. Miller in his able work " The Building 
of Character," says very aptly in this connec- 
tion : 

" We all need human friendship. We need 
it specially in our times of darkness. He does 
not well, he lives not wisely, who in the days 
of prosperity neglects to gather about his life a 
few loving friends, who will be a strength to 
him in the days of stress and need." 

There is a time to show sympathy, when it is 
golden ; when this time has passed, and we 



Some of Labor 3 s Co??ipe?isatio?is. 135 

have only slept meanwhile, we may as well 
sleep on. You did not go near your friend 
when he was fighting his battle alone. You 
might have helped him then. What use is 
there in ycur coming to him now, when he has 
conquered without your aid? You paid no at- 
tention to your neighbor when he was bending 
under life's loads, and struggling with difficul- 
ties, obstacles, and adversities. You let him 
alone then. You never told him that you 
sympathized with him. You never said a 
brave, strong word of cheer to him in those days. 
You never even scattered a handful of flowers 
on his hard path. Now that he is dead and 
lying in his coffin, what is the use in your 
standing beside his still form, and telling the 
people how nobly he battled, how heroically he 
lived; and speaking words of commendation? 
No, no ; having let him go on, unhelped, un- 
cheered, unencouraged, through the days when 
he needed so sorely your warm sympathy, and 
craved so hungrily your cheer, you may as well 
sleep on and take your rest, letting him alone 
unto the end. Nothing can be done now. Too 
laggard are the feet that come with comfort 
when the time for comfort is past. 

"Ah ! woe for the word that is never said 

Till the ear is deaf to hear ; 
And woe for the lack to the fainting head 

Of the ringing shout of cheer ; 
Ah ! woe for the laggard feet that tread 

In the mournful wake of the bier. 



136 Hozv to Get on in the World. 

"A pitiful thing the gift to-day 

That is dross and nothing worth, 

Though if it had come but yesterday, 
It had brimmed with sweet the earth ; 

A fading rose in a death-cold hand, 
That perished in want and dearth." 

Shall we not take our lesson from the legend 
of the robin that plucked a thorn from the 
Saviour's brow, and thus sought to lessen his 
pain, rather than from the story of the disciples, 
who slept and failed to give the help which the 
Lord sought from their love? Thus can we 
strengthen those whose burdens are heavy, and 
whose struggles and sorrows are sore. 

All noble effort, as Sarah K. Bolton beauti- 
fully expresses it, is its own reward • 

" I like the man who faces what he must 
With step triumphant and a heart of cheer ; 
Who fights the daily battle without fear ; 
Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust 
That God is God ; that, somehow, true and just, 
His plans work out for mortals ; not a tear 
Is shed when fortune, which the world holds 

dear, 
Falls from his grasp. Better, with love, a crust, 
Than living in dishonor ; envies not 
Nor loses faith in man ; but does his best, 
Nor ever murmurs at his humbler lot ; 
But with a smile and words of hope, giyes zest 
To every toiler. He alone is great 
Who, by a life heroic, conquers fate." 



Some of Labor's Compensations. 137 

"After I have completed an invention," says 
Thomas A. Edison, " I seem to lose interest in 
it. One might think that the money value of 
an invention constituted its reward to the man 
who loves his work. But, speaking for myself, 
I can honestly say this is not so. Life was 
never so full of joy to me, as when a poor boy 
I began to think out improvements in telegraphy, 
and to experiment with the cheapest and crud- 
est appliances. But, now that I have all the 
appliances I need, and am my own master, I 
continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so 
my reward, in the work that precedes what 
the world calls success." 

Mr. Gladstone, the great English statesman, 
and though nearing four score and ten, still 
one of the most industrious of men, says : 

"I have found my greatest happiness in la- 
bor. I early formed the habit of industry, and 
it has been its own reward. The young are 
apt to think that rest means a cessation from 
all effort, but I have found the most perfect 
rest in changing effort. If brain-weary over 
books and study, go out into the blessed sun- 
light and the pure air, and give heartfelt exer- 
cise to the body. The brain will soon become 
calm and rested. The efforts of nature are 
ceaseless. Even in our sleep, the heart throbs 
on. If these great forces ceased for an instant 
death would follow. I try to live close to na- 
ture, and to imitate her in my labors. The 
compensation is sound sleep, a wholesome diges- 
tion, and powers that are kept at their best ; and 



138 How to Get on in the World. 

this I take it is the chief reward of industry." 
" If I ever get time from work," said Horace 
Greeley one day, " I'll go a-fishing, for I was 
fond of it when a boy." But he never went a- 
fishing, never indulged in a healthful change 
of exercise, and the result was a mind thrown 
out of balance, and death in the prime of life. 
We all need a restful change at times* 



CHAPTER XV 1. 

PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE. 

If great success were possible only to men of 
great talents, then there would be but little 
success in the world. 

It has been said that talent is quite as much 
the ability to stick to a thing, as the apti- 
tude to do it better than another. "I will 
fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." 
This statement of General Grant does not indi- 
cate the man of genius, but it does show the 
man of indomitable perseverance, a perse- 
verance to which he owed all his success, for it 
is well known that he was a very modest, and 
by no means a brilliant man. The key to his 
character was pertinacity : the secret of his 
success was perseverance. 

" I will to-day thrash the Mexicans, or die 
a-trying ! " was what Sam Houston said to an 
aide, the morning of the battle of San Jacinto. 
And he won. 

The soldier who begins the battle in doubt 
is half beaten in advance. 

The man who loses heart after one failure is 
a fool to make a beginning. 

There is a great deal in good preparation, 
but there is a great deal more in heroic perse- 
verance. The man who declines to make a 
beginning till everything he thinks he may 
need is ready for his hand, is very apt to make 
139 



'4-0 How to Get on in the World. 

a failure. The greatest things have bee* 
achieved by the simplest means. It is the 
ceaseless chopping that wears away the stone. 
The plodder may be laughed at, and the brill- 
iant man who accomplishes great things at a 
leap admired ; but we all remember the fable 
of the tortoise and the hare ; the latter, confi- 
dent of her powers, stopped to rest ; the former, 
aware of his limitations, ;?trsevered and toiled 
laboriously on, — and he won the race. 

We do not wish to be understood as under- 
estimating genius. We believe in it ; but one 
of its strongest characteristics is perseverance* 
and the next is its capacity to accomplish great 
results with the simplest means. 

"Easy come, easy go." Those things that 
are acquired without much effort, are usually 
appreciated according to the effort expended. 
Determination has a strong will; stubbornness 
has a strong won't The one is characterized by 
perseverance, and it builds up ; the other, having 
no purpose but blind self, ends in destruc- 
tion. 

It is a fact at once remarkable and encour- 
aging that no man of great genius who has left 
his mark on his times, ever believed that his 
success was due to gifts that lifted him above 
his fellows. The means by which he rose wer» 
within the reach of all, and perseverance waa 
a prime requisite. 

The greatest results in life are usually at- 
tained by simple means, and the exercise of 
ordinary qualities. The common life of every 



Patience and Perseverance. 141 

day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords 
ample opportunity for acquiring experience of 
the best kind ; and its most beaten paths pro- 
vide the true worker with abundant scope for 
effort and room for self-improvement. The 
road of human welfare lies along the old high- 
way of steadfast well-doing ; and they who are 
the most persistent, and work in the truest 
spirit, will usually be the most successful. 

Fortune has often been blamed for her blind- 
ness ; but fortune is not so blind as men are. 
Those who look into practical life will find 
that fortune is usually on the side of the in- 
dustrious, as the winds a-nd waves are on the 
side of the best navigators. In the pursuit of 
even the highest branches of human inquiry, 
the commoner qualities are found the most use- 
ful — such as common sense, attention, applica- 
tion, and perseverance. Genius may not be 
necessary, though even genius of the highest 
sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary 
qualities. The very greatest men have been 
among the least believers in the power of 
genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as 
successful men of the commoner sort. Some 
have even defined genius to be only common 
sense intensified. A distinguished teacher and 
president of a college spoke of it as the power 
of making efforts. John Foster held it to be 
the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffo* 
said of genius, " It is patience." 

Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the 
rery highest order, and yet, when asked bf 



142 How to Get on in the World. 

what means he had worked out his extra- 
ordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, 
" By always thinking unto them." At another 
time he thus expressed his method of study: 
" I keep the subject continually before me, and 
wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little 
and little into a full and clear light." It was 
in Newton's case as in every other, only by 
diligent application and perseverance that his 
great reputation was achieved. Even his recre- 
ation consisted in change of study, laying down 
one subject to take up another. To Dr. Bentley 
he said : " If I have done the public any serv- 
ice, it is due to nothing but industry and 
patient thought." So Kepler, another great 
philosopher, speaking of his studies and his 
progress, said : "As in Virgil, ' Fama mobili- 
tate viget, vires acquirit eundo/ so it was with 
me, that the diligent thought on these things 
was the occasion of still further thinking ; until 
at last I brooded with the whole energy of my 
mind upon the subject." 

The extraordinary results effected by dint of 
sheer industry and perseverance, have led many 
distinguished men to doubt whether the gift of 
genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is 
usually supposed to be. Thus Voltaire held 
that it is only a very slight line of separation 
that divides the man of genius from the man 
of ordinary mould. Beccaria was even of 
opinion that all men might be poets and ora- 
tors, and Keynolds that they might be painters 
and sculptors. If this were really bo, that 



Patience and Perseverance, 143 

stolid Englishman might not have been so very 
far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death, 
inquired of his brother whether it was " his 
intention to carry on the business ! " Locke, 
Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men 
have an equal aptitude for genius, and that 
what some are able to effect, under the laws 
which regulate the operations of the intellect, 
must also be within the reach of others who, 
under like circumstances, apply themselves to 
like pursuits. But while admitting to the 
fullest extent the wonderful achievements of 
labor, and recognizing the fact that men of the 
most distinguished genius have invariably been 
found the most indefatigable workers, it must 
nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, with- 
out the original endowment of heart and brain, 
no amount of labor, however well applied, 
could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, 
a Beethoven, or a Michael Angelo. 

Dalton, the chemist, repudiated the notion 
of his being a " genius," attributing everything 
which he had accomplished to simple industry 
and perseverance. John Hunter said of him- 
self, " My mind is like a bee-hive ; but full as 
it is of buzz and apparent confusion, it is yet 
full of order and regularity, and food collected 
with incessant industry from the choicest stores 
of nature." We have, indeed, but to glance 
at the biographies of great men to find that the 
most distinguished inventors, artists, thinkers, 
and workers of all kinds, ow r e their success, in 
a great measure, to their indefatigable indus- 



144 How to Get on in the World. 

try and application. They were men who 
turned all things to good — even time itself. 
Disraeli, the elder, held that the secret of 
success consisted in being master of your 
subject, such mastery being attainable only 
through continuous application and study. 
Hence it happens that the men who have most 
moved the world have not been so much men 
of genius, strictly so called, as men of intent 
mediocre abilities and untiring perseverance ; 
not so often the gifted, of naturally bright and 
shining qualities, as those who have applied 
themselves diligently to their work, in whatso- 
ever line that might lie. " Alas ! " said a 
widow, speaking of her brilliant but careless 
son, " he has not the gift of continuance." 
Wanting in perseverance, such volatile natures 
are outstripped in the race of life by the dili- 
gent and even the dull. 

Hence, a great point to be aimed at is to get 
the working quality w T ell trained. When that 
is done, the race will be found comparatively 
easy. We must repeat and again repeat : facil- 
ilty will come with labor. Not even the 
simplest art can be accomplished without it; 
and what difficulties it is found capable of 
achieving ! It was by early discipline and 
repetition that the late Sir Robert Peel culti- 
vated those remarkable, though still mediocre, 
powers, which rendered him so illustrious an 
ornament of the British senate. When a boy 
at Drayton Manor, his father was accustomed 
to set him up at table to practice speaking 



Patience and Perseverance. 145 

extempore ; and he early accustomed him to 
repeat as much of the Sunday's sermon as he 
could remember. Little progress was made at 
first, but by steady perservance the habit of 
attention became powerful, and the sermon was 
at length repeated almost verbatim. When 
afterward replying in succession to the argu- 
ments of his parliamentary opponents — an art 
in which he was perhaps unrivaled — it was 
little surmised that the extraordinary power of 
accurate remembrance which he displayed on 
guch occasions had been originally trained 
under the discipline of his father in the parish 
church of Drayton. 

It is indeed marvelous what continuous ap- 
plication will effect in the commonest of things. 
It may seem a simple affair to play upon a 
violin ; yet what a long and laborious practice 
it requires ! Giardini said to a youth who asked 
him how long it would take to learn it, " Twelve 
hours a day for twenty years together." 

Progress, however, of the best kind is com- 
paratively slow. Great results cannot be 
achieved at once ; and we must be satisfied to 
advance in life as we walk, step by step. De 
Maistre says that " To know how to wait is the 
great secret of success." We must sow before 
we can reap, and often have to wait long, con- 
tent meanwhile to look patiently forward in 
hope: the fruit best worth waiting for often 
ripening the slowest. But " time and patience," 
says the Eastern proverb, " change the mul- 
berry leaf to satin." 



146 How to Get on in the World, 

To wait patiently, however, men must work 
cheerfully. Cheerfulness is an excellent work- 
ing quality, imparting great elasticity to the 
character. As a bishop has said, " Temper is 
nine-tenths of Christianity ;" so are cheerful- 
ness and diligence nine-tenths of practical 
wisdom. They are the life and soul of success, 
as well as of happiness ; perhaps the very high- 
est pleasure in life consisting in clear, brisk, 
conscious working; energy, confidence, and 
every other good quality mainly depending 
upon it. Sydney Smith, w T hen laboring as a 
parish priest at Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire — 
though he did not feel himself to be in his 
proper element — went cheerfully to work in 
the firm determination to do his best. " I am 
resolved," he said, " to like it, and reconcile 
myself to it, which is more manly than to 
feign myself above it, and to send up com- 
plaints by the post of being thrown away, and 
being desolate, and such like trash." So Dr. 
Hook, when leaving Leeds for a new sphere of 
labor, said, " Wherever I may be, I shall, by 
God's blessing, do with my might what my 
hand findeth to do ; and if I do not find work, 
I shall make it." 

Laborers for the public good especially have 
to work long and patiently, often uncheered by 
the prospect of immediate recompense or result. 
The seeds they sow sometimes lie hidden under 
the winter's snow, and before the spring comes 
the husbandman may have gone to his rest. It 
is not every public worker who, like Rowland 



Patience a?id Perseverance. 147 

Hill, sees his great idea bring forth fruit in his 
lifetime. Adam Smith sowed the seeds of a 
great social amelioration in that dingy old Uni- 
versity of Glasgow, where he so long labored, 
and laid the foundations of his "Wealth of 
Nations ; " but seventy years passed before his 
work bore substantial fruits, nor indeed are 
they all gathered in yet. 

Nothing can compensate for the loss of hope 
in a man : it entirely changes the character. 
" How can I work — how can I be happy," said 
a great but miserable thinker, " when I have 
lost all hope ? " One of the most cheerful and 
courageous, because one of the most hopeful 
of workers, was Carey, the missionary. When 
in India, it was no uncommon thing for him to 
weary out three pundits, who officiated as his 
clerks in one day, he himself taking rest only 
in change of employment. Carey, the son of a 
shoemaker, was supported in his labors by 
Ward, the son of a carpenter, and Marsham, 
the son of a weaver. By their labors a mag- 
nificent college was erected at Serampore ; 
sixteen flourishing stations were established ; 
the Bible was translated into sixteen languages, 
and the seeds were sown of a beneficent moral 
revolution in British India. Carey was never 
ashamed of the humbleness of his origin. On 
one occasion, when at the Governor-General's 
table, he overheard an officer opposite him ask- 
ing another, loud enough to be heard, whether 
Carey had not once been a shoemaker : u No, 
sir,* exclaimed Carey immediately ; " only a 



148 How to Get on in the World* 

cobbler." An eminently characteristic anecdote 
has been told of his perseverance as a boy. 
When climbing a tree one day, his foot slipped 
and he fell to the ground, breaking his leg by 
the fall. He was confined to his bed for weeks, 
but when he recovered and was able to walk 
without support, the very first thing he did was 
to go and climb that tree. Carey had need of 
this sort of dauntless courage for the great mis- 
sionary work of his life, and nobly and resolutely 
he did it. 

It was a maxim of Dr. Young, the philoso- 
pher, that "Any man can do what any other 
man has done ; " and it is unquestionable that 
he himself never recoiled from any trials to 
which he determined to subject himself. It is 
related of him, that the first time he mounted 
a horse he was in company with the grandson of 
Mr. Barclay, of Ury, the well-known sports- 
man. When the horseman who preceded them 
leaped a high fence, Young wished to imitate 
him, but fell off his horse in the attempt. 
Without saying a word, he remounted, made a 
second effort, and w r as again unsuccessful, but 
this time he was not thrown farther than on to 
the horse's neck, to which he clung. At the 
third trial he succeeded, and cleared the fence. 

The story of Timour, the Tartar, learning a 
lesson of perseverance under adversity from 
the spider is well known. Not less interesting 
is the anecdote of Audubon, the American 
ornithologist, as related by himself: "An ac- 
cident," he says, "which happened to iwo 



Patience and Perseverance. 149 

hundred of my original drawings, nearly put a 
stop to my researches in ornithology. I shall 
relate it, merely to show how far enthusiasm — 
for by no other name can I call my persever- 
ance — may enable the preserver of nature to 
surmount the most disheartening difficulties. 
I left the village of Henderson, in Kentucky, 
situated on the banks of the Ohio, where I re- 
sided for several years, to proceed to Philadel- 
phia on business. I looked to my drawings 
before my departure, placed them carefully in 
a wooden box, and gave them in charge of a 
relative, with injunctions to see that no injury 
should happen to them. My absence was of 
several months ; and when I returned, after 
having enjoyed the pleasures of home for a few 
days, I inquired after my box, and what I was 
pleased to call my treasure. The box was 
produced and opened ; but, reader, feel for me 
— a pair of Norway rats had taken possession 
of the whole, and reared a young family among 
the gnawed bits of paper, which, but a month 
previous, represented nearly a thousand in- 
habitants of air ! The burning heat which 
instantly rushed through my brain was too great 
to be endured without affecting my whole ner- 
vous system. I slept for several nights, and 
the days passed like days of oblivion — until 
the animal powers being recalled into action 
through the strength of my constitution, I took 
up my gun, my note-book and my pencils, and 
went forth to the woods as gayly as if nothing 
had happened. I felt pleased that I might now 



150 How to Get on in the World. 

make better drawings than before ; and ere a 
period not exceeding three years had elapsed, 
my portfolio was again filled." 

The accidental destruction of Sir Isaac New- 
ton's papers, by his little dog u Diamond " 
upsetting a lighted taper upon his desk, bj 
which the elaborate calculations of many years 
were in a moment destroyed, is a well-known 
anecdote, and need not be repeated : it is said 
that the loss caused the philosopher such pro- 
found grief that it seriously injured his health, 
and impaired his understanding. An accident of 
a, somewhat similar kind happened to the manu- 
script of Mr. Carlyle's first volume of his 
" French Revolution. " He had lent the manu- 
script to a literary neighbor to peruse. By some 
mischance, it had been left lying on the parlor 
floor, and become forgotten. Weeks ran on, 
and the historian sent for his work, the printers 
being loud for " copy." Inquiries were made, 
and it was found that the maid-of-all-work, 
finding what she conceived to be a bundle of 
waste paper on the floor, had used it to light the 
kitchen and parlor fires with ! Such was the 
answer returned to Mr. Carlyle ; and his feel- 
ings can be imagined. There was, however, 
no help for him but to set resolutely to work to 
rewrite the book ; and he turned to and did it. 
He had no draft and was compelled to rake up 
from his memory, facts, ideas, and expressions 
which had been long since dismissed. The 
composition of the book in the first instance had 
been a work of pleasure ; the rewriting of it 



Patience a?id Perseverance, 151 

a second time was one of pain and anguish al- 
most beyond belief. That he persevered and 
finished the volume under such circumstances, 
affords an instance of determination of pur- 
pose which has seldom been surpassed. 

There is no walk in life, in which success has 
been w T on, that has not its brilliant examples of 
the achievements of perseverance. The literary 
life, in which all who read are interested, has 
many illustrations of this. No great career 
affords stronger proof of this than that of the 
great Sir Walter Scott, who, delighting his own 
generation, must be honored by all the genera- 
tions that follow. 

His admirable working qualities were trained 
in a lawyer's office, where he pursued for many 
years a sort of drudgery scarcely above that 
of a copying clerk. His daily dull routine 
made his evenings, which were his own, all the 
more sweet ; and he generally devoted them to 
reading and study. He himself attributed to 
his prosaic office discipline that habit of steady, 
sober diligence, in which mere literary men are 
so often found wanting. As a copying clerk he 
was allowed Sd. for every page containing a 
certain number of words ; and he sometimes, 
by extra work, was able to copy as many as 
120 pages in twenty-four hours, thus earning 
some 30s. ; out of which he would occasionally 
purchase an odd volume, otherwise beyond his 
means. 

During his after-life Scott was wont to pride 
himself upon being a man of business, and he 



152 How to Get on in the World. 

averred, in contradiction to what he called the 
cant of sonneteers, that there was no necessary 
connection between genius and an aversion or 
contempt for the common duties of life. On 
the contrary, he was of opinion that to spend 
some fair portion of every day in any matter- 
of-fact occupation was good for the higher facul- 
ties themselves in the upshot. While after- 
ward acting as clerk to the Court of Session 
in Edinburgh, he performed his literary work 
chiefly before breakfast, attending the court 
during the day, where he authenticated regis- 
tered deeds and writings of various kinds. " On 
the whole," says Lockhart, " it forms one of the 
most remarkable features in his history, that 
throughout the most active period of his liter- 
ary career, he must have devoted a large pro- 
portion of his hours, during half at least of 
every year, to the conscientious discharge of 
professional duties.' ' It was a principle of 
action which he laid down for himself, that he 
must earn his living by business, and not by 
literature. On one occasion he said, " I de- 
termined that literature should be my staff, not 
my crutch, and that the profits of my literary 
labor, however convenient otherwise, should 
not, if I could help it, become necessary to my 
ordinary expenses." 

His punctuality was one of the most care- 
fully cultivated of his habits, otherwise it 
had not been possible for him to get through so 
enormous an amount of literary labor. He 
made it a rule to answer every letter received 



Patie?ice and Perseverance, 153 

by him on the same day, except where inquiry 
and deliberation were requisite. Nothing else 
could have enabled him to keep abreast with 
the flood of communications that poured in 
upon him and sometimes put his good-nature to 
the severest test. It was his practice to rise 
by five o'clock and light his own fire. He 
shaved and dressed with deliberation, and was 
seated at his desk by six o'clock, with his 
papers arranged before him in the most accurate 
order, his works of reference marshaled round 
him on the floor, while at least one favorite dog 
lay watching his eye, outside the line of books. 
Thus by the time the family assembled for 
breakfast, between nine and ten, he had done 
enough — to use his own words — to break the 
neck of a day's work. But with all his diligent 
and indefatigable industry, and his immense 
knowledge, the result of many years' patient 
labor, Scott always spoke with the greatest 
diffidence of his own powers. On one occasion 
he said, " Throughout every part of my career 
I have felt pinched and hampered by my own 
ignorance." 

But perseverance and effort do not always 
mean successful work. Freeman Hunt dis- 
tinguishes admirably between activity and 
energy in the following statement, which it 
would be well to remember : 

" There are some men whose failure to suc- 
ceed in life is a problem to others, as well 
as to themselves. They are industrious, pru- 
dent, and economical ; yet, after a long life of 



154 How to Get on in the World. 

striving, old age finds them still poor. They com- 
plain of ill-luck ; they say fate is against them. 
But the real truth is that their projects mis- 
carry because they mistake mere activity for 
energy. Confounding two things essentially 
different, they suppose that if they are always 
busy, they must of a necessity be advancing 
their fortune ; forgetting that labor misdirected 
is but a waste of activity." 

" The person who w^ould succeed in life is like 
a marksman firing at a target — if his shot 
misses the mark, it is but a waste of powder ; 
to be of any service at all, it must tell in the 
bull's eye or near it. So, in the great game of 
life, what a man does must be made to count, 
or it had almost as w T ell be left undone. 

" The idle warrior, cut from a block of wood, 
who fights the air on the top of a weather- 
cock, instead of being made to turn some 
machine commensurate with his strength, is not 
more worthless than the merely active man 
who, though busy from sunrise to sunset, dis- 
sipates his labor on trifles, when he ought skill- 
fully to concentrate it on some great end. 

" Every person knows some one in his circle 
of acquaintance w 7 ho, though always active, 
has this want of energy. The distemper, if 
we may call it such, exhibits itself in various 
ways. In some cases, the man has merely an 
executive faculty when he should have a direct- 
ing one ; in other words, he makes a capital 
clerk for himself, w 7 hen he ought to do the 
thinking work for the establishment. In other 



Patience and Perseverayice . 155 

cases, what is done is either not done at the 
right time, or not in the right way. Sometimes 
there is no distinction made between objects of 
different magnitudes, and as much labor is 
bestowed on a trivial affair as on a matter of 
great moment. 

"Energy, correctly understood, is activity 
proportioned to the end. The first Napoleon 
would often, when in a campaign, remain for 
days without undressing himself, now galloping 
from point to point, now dictating despatches, 
now studying maps and directing operations. 
But his periods of repose, when the crisis was 
over, were generally as protracted as his pre- 
vious exertions had been. He has been known 
to sleep for eighteen hours without waking. 
Second-rate men, slaves of tape and routine, 
while they would fall short of the superhuman 
exertions of the great emperor, would have 
considered themselves lost beyond hope if they 
imitated what they call his indolence. They 
are capital illustrations of activity, keeping up 
their monotonous jog-trot for ever ; while Napo- 
leon, with his gigantic industry, alternating 
with such apparent idleness, is an example of 
energy. 

" We do not mean to imply that chronic in- 
dolence, if relieved occasionally by spasmodic 
fits of industry, is to be recommended. Men 
who have this character run into the opposite 
extreme of that which we have been stigmatiz- 
ing, and fail as invariably of securing success 
ka life. To call their occasional periods of 



156 How to Get 07t in the World, 

application energy, would be a sad misnomer. 
Such persons, indeed, are but civilized savages, 
so to speak ; vagabonds at heart in their secret 
hatred of work, and only resorting to labor 
occasionally, like the wild Indian who, after 
lying for weeks about his hut, is roused by sheer 
hunger to start on a hunting excursion. Real 
energy is persevering, steady, disciplined. It 
never either loses sight of the object to be 
accomplished, or intermits its exertions while 
there is a possibility of success. Napoleon on 
the plains of Champagne, sometimes fighting 
two battles in one day, first defeating the Rus- 
sians and then turning on the Austrians, is an 
illustration of this energy. The Duke of 
Brunswick, idling away precious time when he 
invaded France at the outbreak of the first 
Revolution, is an example of the contrary. 
Activity beats about a cover like an untrained 
dog, never lighting on the covey. Energy goe3 
straight to the bird at once and captures it." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SUCCESS BUT SELDOM ACCIDENTAL. 

A man may leap into sudden fortune at a 
bound, and without effort or foresight, but it is 
doubtful if any great permanent success ever 
was the outcome of blind chance. 

The old adage, " Trust to luck," like many 
other adages that time has kept in unmerited 
circulation, is a bad one. The man who trusts 
to luck for his clothing is apt to wear rags, and 
he who depends on it for food is sure to go 
hungry. 

We hear a great deal about the wonderful 
things that have been done by chance, but we 
seldom take the time to examine them. We 
read that Sir Isaac Newton, sitting in his gar- 
den one day, " chanced to see an apple fall to 
the ground, " and this set him to thinking, and 
he discovered the laws of gravitation. Now, 
ever since the first apple fell from the first tree 
in Eden, men have been watching that very 
commonplace occurrence. We might extend 
the field so as to embrace oranges, cocoanuts 
and all the fruits and nuts which, in every land 
and through all the long centuries of man's 
existence, have been falling to the ground — not 
by chance, however, yet they set no men to 
thinking, simply because not one of the millions 
of men who " chanced " to see the incident, 
" chanced " to have the reasoning powers of the 
i57 



158 How to Get on in the World. 

great English scientist. If the apple, instead 
of falling to the ground, had shot up, without 
visible cause, to the sky, then the dullest ob- 
server would have wondered, even if he did not 
attempt to find an explanation. The falling of 
the apple in Newton's garden was not a chance, 
but an ordinary incident, which was made 
much of in the mind of an extraordinary 
man. 

Watt " chanced " to see the lid of the kettle 
in his mother's kitchen lifted by the steam 
within, and this incident we are asked to be- 
lieve was the origin of the engine invented by 
that great man. If no one else had ever wit- 
nessed a like phenomenon, then we might give 
some consideration to the element of chance. 
It was in the brain of Watt, and not in the lift- 
ing of the kettle lid, that the steam engine 
was born. There are no accidents in the prog- 
ress of science. 

In the same way, we are asked to believe 
that Galileo discovered the telescope, Whitney 
the cotton gin, and Howe the sewing machine. 

But there have been some curious cases of 
chance fortune. A man out hunting in Cali- 
fornia made a mis-step and was plunged into a 
deep gulch in the Sierra Nevada. His gun 
was broken and he was sorely bruised, but he 
was more than repaid for the accident by the 
discovery of a rich gold mine at the bottom. 

What would you think of the man, who, be- 
cause of this, should shoulder a gun and go 
into the mountains, hoping to be precipitated 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 159 

into a gulch full of gold. If he started out for 
this purpose, of course, the element of chance 
would be eliminated, and yet that man would 
show just as much good sense as do the thousands 
who go through life — trusting to luck, and hop- 
ing for a miracle that never comes. 

Success may be unforeseen, but it is a rare 
thing for it to come to the man who has not 
been preparing for it. 

Lord Bacon well says : " Neither the naked 
hand nor the understanding, left to itself, can do 
much ; the work is accomplished by instru- 
ments and helps, of which the need is not less 
for the understanding than the hand." 

The Romans had a saying which is as true 
to-day as when first uttered : " Opportunity has 
hair in front, behind she is bald ; if you seize 
her by the forelock, you may hold her, but if 
suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can 
catch her again." 

Accident does very little toward the produc- 
tion of any great result in life. Though some- 
times what is called " a happy hit " may be 
made by a bold venture, the common highway 
of steady industry and application is the only 
safe road to travel. It is said of the landscape 
painter, Wilson, that when he had nearly fin- 
ished a picture in a tame, correct manner, he 
would step back from it, his pencil fixed at the 
end of a long stick, and after gazing earnestly 
on the work, he would suddenly walk up and 
by a few bold touches give a brilliant finish to 
the painting. But it will not do for every 



1 60 How to Get on in the World. 

one who would produce an effect, to throw his 
brush at the canvas in the hope of producing a 
picture. The capability of putting in these 
last vital touches is acquired only by the labor 
of a life ; and the probability is, that the artist 
who has not carefully trained himself before- 
hand, in attempting to produce a brilliant effect 
at a dash, will only produce a blotch. 

Sedulous attention and painstaking industry 
always mark the true worker. The greatest 
men are not those who " despise the day of small 
things," but those who improve them the most 
carefully. Michael Angelo was one day ex- 
plaining to a visitor at his studio what he had 
been doing to a statue since a previous visit. 
" I have retouched this part — polished that — 
softened this feature — brought out that muscle 
— given some expression to this lip, and more 
energy to that limb." " But these are trifles," 
remarked the visitor. " It may be so," replied 
the sculptor, " but recollect that trifles make 
perfection, and perfection is no trifle." So it 
was said of Nicolas Poussin, the painter, that 
the rule of his conduct was, that " whatever 
was w 7 orth doing at all was worth doing well ; " 
and when asked, late in life, by his friend Vig- 
neul de Marville, by what means he had gained 
so high a reputation among the painters of Italy, 
Poussin emphatically answered, " Because I 
have neglected nothing." 

Although there are discoveries which are 
said to have been made by accident, if care- 
fully inquired into it will be found that there 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 161 

has really been very little that was accidental 
about them. For the most part, these so-called 
accidents, have only been opportunities, carefully 
improved by genius. The brilliantly colored 
soap-bubbles blown through a common tobacco- 
pipe — though " trifles light as air" in most eyes 
— suggested to Dr. Young his beautiful theory 
of "interferences," and led to his discovery 
relating to the diffraction of light. Although 
great men are popularly supposed only to deal 
with great things, men such as Newton and 
Young were ready to detect the significance of 
the most familiar and simple facts ; their great- 
ness consisting mainly in their wise interpreta- 
tion of them. 

The difference between men consists, in a 
great measure, in the intelligence of their obser- 
vation. The Russian proverb says of the non- 
observant man, " He goes through the forest 
and sees no firewood." " The wise man's eyes 
are in his head," says Solomon, " but the fool 
walketh in darkness." "Sir," said Johnson on 
one occasion, to a fine gentleman just returned 
from Italy, "some men would learn more in 
the Hampstead stage than others in the tour 
of Europe." It is the mind that sees as well 
as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe 
nothing, men of intelligent vision penetrate 
into the very fibre of the phenomena presented 
to them, attentively noting differences, making 
comparisons and recognizing their underlying 
idea. Many before Galileo had seen a sus- 
pended weight swing before their eyes with a 



1 62 How to Get on in the World, 

measured beat, but he was the first to detect th# 
value of the fact. One of the vergers in the 
cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a 
lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging 
to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only eigh- 
teen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of 
applying it to the measurement of time. Fifty 
years of study and labor, however, elapsed be- 
fore he completed the invention of his Pendu- 
lum — the importance of which, in the measure- 
ment of time and in astronomical calculations, 
can scarcely be overrated. In like manner, 
Galileo, having casually heard that one Lipper- 
shey, a Dutch spectacle-maker, had presented 
to Count Maurice of Nassau an instrument by 
means of which distant obejcts appeared nearer 
to the beholder, addressed himself to the cause 
of such a phenomenon, which led to the inven- 
tion of the telescope and proved the beginning 
of the modern science of astronomy. Discov- 
eries such as these could never have been made 
by a negligent observer, or by a mere passive 
listener. 

While Captain (afterward Sir Samuel) 
Brown was occupied in studying the construc- 
tion of bridges, with the view of contriving one 
of a cheap description to be thrown across the 
Tweed near which he lived, he was walking in 
his garden one dewy autumn morning, when he 
saw a tiny spider's net suspended across his 
path. The idea immediately occurred to him, 
that a bridge of iron ropes or chains might be 
constructed in like manner, ana tne result was 
the invention of his suspension bridge. S© 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 163 

James Watt, when consulted about the mode 
of canning water by pipes under the Clyde, 
along the unequal bed of the river, turned his 
attention one day to the shell of a lobster pre- 
sented at table ; and from that model he in- 
vented an iron tube, which, when laid down, 
was found effectually to answer the purpose. 
Sir Isambard Brunei took his first lessons in 
forming the Thames Tunnel from the tiny ship- 
worm : he saw how the little creature perforated 
the wood with its well-armed head, first in one 
direction and then in another, till the archway 
was complete, and then daubed over the roof 
and sides with a kind of varnish ; and by copy- 
ing this work exactly on a large scale, Brunei 
was at length enabled to construct his shield 
and accomplish his great engineering work. 

It is the intelligent eye of the careful ob- 
server which gives these apparently trivial 
phenomena their value. So trifling a matter 
as the sight of seaweed floating past his ship, 
enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which 
arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, 
and to assure them that the eagerly sought 
New World w r as not far off. 

It is the close observation of little things 
which is the secret of success in business, in art, 
in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human 
knowledge is but an accumulation of small 
facts, made by successive generations of men, 
the little bits of knowledge and experience 
carefully treasured up by them growing at 
length into a mighty pyramid. Though many 



164 How to Get on in the World, 

of these facts and observations seemed in the 
first instance to have but slight significance, 
they are all found to have their eventual uses, 
and to fit into their proper places. Even many 
speculations seemingly remote, turn out to be 
the basis of results the most obviously practical. 
In the case of the conic sections discovered by 
Apollonius Pergseus, twenty centuries elapsed 
before they were made the basis of astronomy 
— a science which enables the modern navigator 
to steer his w r ay through unknown seas and 
traces for him in the heavens an unerring path 
to his appointed haven. And had not mathe- 
maticians toiled for so long, and, to unin- 
structed observers, apparently so fruitlessly, 
over the abstract relations of lines and surfaces, 
it is probable that but few of our mechanical 
inventions would have seen the light. 

When Franklin made his discovery of the 
identity of lightning and electricity, it was 
sneered at, and people asked, " Of what use is 
it ? " To which his reply was, " What is the 
use of a child ? It may become a man ! " 
When Galvani discovered that a frog's leg 
twitched when placed in contact with different 
metals, it could scarcely have been imagined 
that so apparently insignificant a fact could 
have led to important results. Yet therein lay 
the germ of the electric telegraph, which binds 
the intelligence of continents together, and, 
probably before many years have elapsed will 
" put a girdle round the globe." So, too, little 
bits of stone and fossil, dug out of the earth, 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 165 

intelligently interpreted, have issued in the 
science of geology and the practical operations 
of mining, in which large capitals are invested 
and vast numbers of persons profitably em- 
ployed. 

The gigantic machinery employed in pump- 
ing our mines, working our mills and manu- 
factories, and driving our steamships and 
locomotives, in like manner depends for its 
supply of power upon so slight an agency as 
little drops of water expanded with heat — that 
familiar agency called steam, which we see issu- 
ing from that common tea-kettle spout, but which, 
when pent up within an ingeniously contrived 
mechanism, displays a force equal to that of 
millions of horses, and contains a power to re- 
buke the waves and set even the hurricane at 
defiance. The same power at work within the 
bowels of the earth has been the cause of those 
volcanoes and earthquakes which have played 
so mighty a part in the history of the globe. 

This art of seizing opportunities and turning 
even accidents to account, bending them to 
some purpose, is a great secret of success. Dr. 
Johnson has defined genius to be " a mind of 
large general powers accidentally determined 
in some particular direction." Men who are 
resolved to find a way for themselves, will al- 
ways find opportunities enough ; and if they do 
not lie ready to their hand, they will make 
them. It is not those who have enjoyed the 
advantages of colleges, museums, and public 
galleries, that have accomplished the most for 



1 66 How to Get on in the World. 

science and art ; nor have the greatest mechan- 
ics and inventors been trained in n]echanics , 
institutes. Necessity, oftener than facility, has 
been the mother of invention ; and the most 
prolific school of all has been the school of 
difficulty. Some of the very best workmen 
have had the most indifferent tools to work with. 
But it is not tools that make the workman, 
but the trained skill and perseverance of the 
man himself. Indeed it is proverbial that the 
bad workman never yet had a good tool. 
Some one asked Opie by what wonderful pro- 
cess he mixed his colors. " I mix them with 
my brains, sir," was his reply. It is the same 
with every workman who would excel. Fergu- 
son made marvelous things — such as his 
wooden clock, that accurately measured the 
hours — by means of a common penknife, a tool 
in everybody's hand; but then everybody is 
not a Ferguson. A pan of water and two 
thermometers were the tools by which Dr. Black 
discovered latent heat ; and a prism, a lens, and 
a sheet of pasteboard enabled Newton to unfold 
the composition of light and the origin of colors. 
An eminent foreign savant once called upon 
Dr. Wollaston, and requested to be shown over 
his laboratories, in which science had been en- 
riched by so many important discoveries, when 
the doctor took him into a little study, and, 
pointing to an old tea-tray on the table, con- 
taining a few watch-glasses, test-papers, a small 
balance, and a blowpipe, said, " There is all the 
laboratory that I have I " 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 167 

Stothard learnt the art of combining colors 
by closely studying butterflies' wings : he would 
often say that no one knew what he owed to 
those tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn- 
door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas. 
Bewick first practiced drawing on the cottage 
walls of his native village, which he covered 
with his sketches in chalk ; and Benjamin 
Watt made his first brushes out of the cat's 
tail. Ferguson laid himself down in the fields 
at night in a blanket, and made a map of the 
heavenly bodies by means of a thread with 
small beads on it stretched between his eye and 
the stars. Franklin first robbed the thunder- 
cloud of its lightning by means of a kite made 
with two cross-sticks and a silk handkerchief. 
Watt made his first model of the condensing 
steam-engine out of an old anatomist's syringe, 
used to inject the arteries previous to dissection. 
Gifford worked his first problems in mathe- 
matics, when a cobbler's apprentice, upon small 
scraps of leather, which he beat smooth for 
the purpose ; whilst Rittenhouse, the astrono- 
mer, first calculated eclipses on his plow- 
handle. 

The most ordinary occasions will furnish a 
man with opportunities or suggestions for im- 
provement, if he be but prompt to take advan- 
tage of them. Professor Lee was attracted to 
the study of Hebrew by finding a Bible in that 
tongue in a synagogue, while working as a 
common carpenter at the repair of the benches, 
He became possessed with a desire to read the 



1 68 How to Get on in the World. 

book in the original, and, buying a cheap 
second-hand copy of a Hebrew grammar, he 
set to work and learned the language for him- 
self. As Edmund Stone said to the Duke of 
Argyle, in answer to his grace's inquiry how 
he, a poor gardener's boy, had contrived to be 
able to read Newton's Principia in the Latin, 
" One needs only to know the twenty-four let- 
ters of the alphabet in order to learn every- 
thing else that one wishes." Application and 
perseverance, and the diligent improvement of 
opportunities, will do the rest. 

The attention of Dr. Priestley, the discoverer 
of so many gases, was accidentally drawn to 
the subject of chemistry through his living in 
the neighborhood of a brewery. When visit- 
ing the place one day, he noted the peculiar 
appearances attending the extinction of lighted 
chips in the gas floating over the fermented 
liquor. He was forty years old at the time, 
and knew nothing of chemistry. He consulted 
books to ascertain the cause, but they told him 
little, for as yet nothing was known on the sub- 
ject. Then he began to experiment, with some 
rude apparatus of his own contrivance. The 
curious results of his first experiments led to 
others, which in his hands shortly became the 
science of pneumatic chemistry. About the 
same time, Scheele was obscurely working in 
the same direction in a rer~ote Swedish village ; 
and he discovered several new gases, with no 
more effective apparatus at his command than 
a few apothecaries' vials and pigs' bladders. 



Success but Seldom Accidental* 169 

Sir Humphry Davy, when an apothecary's 
apprentice, performed his first experiments with 
instruments of the rudest description. He ex- 
temporized the greater part of them himself, 
out of the motley materials which chance 
threw in his way — the pots and pans of the 
kitchen, and the vials and vessels of his mas- 
ter's surgery. It happened that a French ship 
was wrecked off the Land's End, and the sur- 
geon escaped, bearing with him his case of 
instruments, amongst which was an old-fash- 
ioned clyster apparatus ; this article he pre- 
sented to Davy, with whom he had become 
acquainted. The apothecary's apprentice re- 
ceived it with great exultation, and forthwith 
employed it as a part of a pneumatic apparatus 
which he contrived, afterward using it to per- 
form the duties of an air-pump in one of his 
experiments on the nature and sources of heat. 

In like manner, Professor Faraday, Sir 
Humphry Davy's scientific successor, made 
bis first experiments in electricity by means of 
an old bottle, while he was still a working 
bookbinder. And it is a curious fact, that 
Faraday was first attracted to the study of 
chemistry by hearing one of Sir Humphry 
Davy's lectures on the subject at the Royal 
Institution. A gentleman, who was a member, 
calling one day at the shop where Faraday was 
employed in binding books, found him poring 
over the article " Electricity," in an encyclo- 
paedia placed in his hands to bind. The gen- 
tleman, having made inquiries, found that the 



1 70 How to Get on in the World. 

young bookbinder was curious about such 
subjects, and gave him an order of admission 
to the Royal Institution, where he attended a 
course of four lectures delivered by Sir Hum- 
phry. He took notes of them, which he showed 
to the lecturer, who acknowledged their scien- 
tific accuracy, and was surprised when informed 
of the humble position of the reporter. Fara- 
day then expressed his desire to devote himself 
to the prosecution of chemical studies, from 
which Sir Humphry at first endeavored to dis- 
suade him : but the young man persisting, he 
was at length taken into the Royal Institution 
as an assistant ; and eventually the mantle of 
the brilliant apothecary's boy fell upon the 
worthy shoulders of the equally brilliant book- 
binder's apprentice. 

The words which Davy entered in his note- 
book, when about twenty years of age, work- 
ing in Dr. Beddoes' laboratory at Bristol, 
were eminently characteristic of him : " I have 
neither riches, nor power, nor birth to recom- 
mend me ; yet if I live I trust I shall not be 
of less service to mankind and my friends, 
than if I had been born with all these advan- 
tages." Davy possessed the capability, as 
Faraday did, of devoting the whole power of 
his mind to the practical and experimental in- 
vestigation of a subject in all its bearings ; and 
such a mind will rarely fail, by dint of mere 
industry and patient thinking, in producing 
results of the highest order. Coleridge said of 
Davy : " There is an energy and elasticity in 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 171 

his mind, which enables him to seize on and 
analyze all questions, pushing them to their 
legitimate consequences. Every subject in 
Davy's mind has the principle of vitality. 
Living thoughts spring up like turf under his 
feet." Davy, on his part said of Coleridge, 
whose abilities he greatly admired : " With the 
most exalted genius, enlarged views, sensitive 
heart, and enlightened mind, he will be the 
victim of a want of order, precision, and regu- 
larity." 

It is not accident, then, that helps a man in 
the world so much as purpose and persistent 
industry. To the feeble, the sluggish and pur- 
poseless, the happiest accidents will avail noth- 
ing — they pass them by, seeing no meaning in 
them. But it is astonishing how much can be 
accomplished if we are prompt to seize and im- 
prove the opportunities for action and effort 
which are constantly presenting themselves* 
Watt taught himself chemistry and mechanics 
while working at his trade of a mathematical 
instrument maker, at the same time that he was 
learning German from a Swiss dyer. Stephen- 
son taught himself arithmetic and mensuration 
while working as an engine-man, during the 
night shifts ; and when he could snatch a few 
moments in the intervals allowed for meals dur- 
ing the day, he worked his sums with a bit of 
chalk upon the sides of the colliery wagons* 
Dalton's industry was the habit of his life. He 
began from his boyhood, for he taught a little 
village school when he w r as only about twelve 



172 How to Get on in the World. 

years old — keeping the school in winter, and 
working upon his father's farm in summer. He 
would sometimes urge himself and companions 
to study by the stimulus of a bet, though bred 
a Quaker ; and on one occasion by his satisfac- 
tory solution of a problem, he won as much as 
enabled him to buy a winter's store of candles. 
He continued his meteorological observations 
until a day or two before he died — having made 
and recorded upward of 200,000 in the course 
of his life. 

With perseverance, the very odds and ends 
of time may be worked up into results of the 
greatest value. An hour in every day with- 
drawn from frivolous pursuits would, if profit- 
ably employed, enable a person of ordinary 
capacity to go far toward mastering a science. 
It would make an ignorant man a well-in- 
formed one in less than ten years. Time should 
not be allowed to pass without yielding fruits, 
in the form of something learnt worthy of being 
known, some good principle cultivated, or some 
good habit strengthened. Dr. Mason Good 
translated Lucretius while riding in his carriage 
in the streets of London, going the round of his 
patients. Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his 
works in the same way w T hile driving about in 
his u sulky " from house to house in the country 
■ — writing down his thoughts on little scraps of 
paper, which he carried about with him for the 
purpose. Hale wrote his " Contemplations " 
while traveling on circuit. Dr. Burney learnt 
French and Italian while traveling on horseback 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 173 

from one musical pupil to another in the 
course of his profession. Kirke White learnt 
Greek while walking to and fro from a lawyer's 
office ; and we personally know a man of emi- 
nent position who learnt Latin and French 
while going messages as an errand-boy. 

Hugh Miller was a busy man of observant 
faculties, who studied literature as well as 
science, with zeal and success. The book in 
which he has told the story of his life (" My 
Schools and Schoolmasters"), is extremely 
interesting, and calculated to be eminently 
useful. It is the history of the formation of a 
truly noble character in the humblest condition 
of life, and inculcates most powerfully the 
lessons of self-help, self-respect, and self-depend- 
ence. While Hugh was but a child, his father, 
who was a sailor, was drowned at sea, and he 
was brought up by his widowed mother. He 
had a school training after a sort, but his best 
teachers were the boys with whom he played, 
the men amongst whom he worked, the friends 
and relatives with whom he lived. He read 
much and miscellaneously, and picked up odd 
sorts of knowledge from many quarters — from 
workmen, carpenters, fishermen and sailors, 
and above all, from the old boulders strew T ed 
along the shores of the Cromarty Firth. With 
a big hammer which had belonged to his great- 
grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went 
about chipping the stones, and accumulating 
specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and such 
like. Sometimes he had a day in the woods, 



174 How to Get on in the World. 

and there, too, the boy's attention was excited 
by the peculiar geological curiosities which 
came in his way. While searching among the 
rocks on the beach, he was sometimes asked, in 
irony, by the farm-servants who came to load 
their carts with sea-weed, whether he "was 
gettin' siller in the stanes," but was so unlucky 
as never to be able to answer in the affirmative. 
When of a suitable age he was apprenticed to 
the trade of his choice — that of a working 
stone-mason ; and he began his laboring career 
in a quarry looking out upon the Cromarty 
Firth. This quarry proved one of his best 
schools. The remarkable geological formations 
which it displayed awakened his curiosity. The 
bar of deep-red stone beneath, and the bar of 
pale-red clay above, were noted by the young 
quarry man, who even in such unpromising 
subjects, found matter of observation and 
reflection. Where other men saw nothing, he 
detected analogies, differences, and peculiarities, 
which set him a-thinking. He simply kept his 
eyes and his mind open ; was sober, diligent 
and persevering ; and this was the secret of his 
intellectual growth. 

His curiosity was excited and kept alive by 
the curious organic remains, principally of old 
and extinct species of fishes, ferns, and ammon- 
ites, which were revealed along the coast by the 
washings of the waves, or were exposed by the 
stroke of his mason's hammer. He never lost 
sight of the subject, but went on accumulating 
observations and comparing formations, until 



Success but Seldom Accidental. 175 

at length, many years afterward, when no 
longer a working mason, he gave to the world 
his highly interesting work on the " Old Red 
Sandstone," which at once established his repu- 
tation as a scientific geologist. But this work 
was the fruit of long years of patient observa- 
tion and research. As he modestly states in his 
autobiography, " The only merit to which I lay 
claim in the case is that of patient research — 
a merit in which whoever wills may rival 
or surpass me ; and this humble faculty of 
patience, when rightly developed, may lead to 
more extraordinary development of ideas than 
even genius itself/' 

" Chance," said an old Vermont farmer, " is 
like going into a field with a pail, and waiting 
for a cow to come to you and back up to be 
milked." 

" Shun delays, they breed remorse ; 

Take thy time while time is lent thee ; 
Creeping snails have weakest force, 
Fly their fault, lest thou repent thee ; 
Good is best when sooner wrought, 
Ling'ring labors come to nought. 

" Hoist up sail w 7 hile gale doth last, 

Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure ! 
Seek not time w T hen time is past, 
Sober speed is wisdom's leisure ; 
A ft/3r-wits are dearly bought, 
Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought, 



I76 How to Get on in the World. 

u Time wears all his locks before, 

Take thou hold upon his forehead; 
When he flees he turns no more, 
And behind his scalp is naked. 

Works adjourn'd have many stayj^ 
Long demurs breed new delays. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

CULTIVATE OBSERVATION AND JUDGMENT. 

"Look before you leap," old Commodore 
Vanderbilt used to say. " I like active men, 
but I have no use for the fellow who is so much 
in earnest that he goes off half-cocked. " We 
all know the danger of a gun that goes off half- 
cocked, but it is not so apt to bring disaster as 
is the man who goes off without due prepara- 
tion. 

It is fortunate for us that we cannot see into 
the future, but the Father who has kept from 
us the gift of prophecy has blessed us with a 
foresight and judgment that enable us to see 
pretty accurately what must be the inevitable 
consequence of certain acts. 

The power to observe carefully and judge ac- 
curately is a rare gift, but it is one that can be 
cultivated. The ancients had a motto " Know 
thyself," and the great poet Pope tells us that 
" the proper study of mankind is man." A 
knowledge of human nature is invaluable in 
every life-calling that brings us into contact 
with our fellows, and this can be gained only by 
Careful observation. 

Stephen Girard attributed much of his suc- 
cess to his " ability to read men at a glance.** 
And so carefully did the great merchant prince, 
Alexander T. Stewart, study this, that it is said 
he rarely made a mistake in the character of % 
man he took into his employ. 
177 



178 How to Get on in the World. 

Cultivate observation. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes maintained that all the difference in 
men, no matter their callings, lay in the differ- 
ence of their ability to observe and draw proper 
conclusions from their observations. Professor 
Huxley says that " observation is the basis of 
all our scientific knowledge. " And Andrew 
Carnegie attributes his great success to his cul- 
tivation of this faculty. 

Every young man, ambitious to win — and 
what young man worthy the name is not? — 
should have a standard of excellence for himself, 
and then he should carefully study and observe 
the methods of the men whom he admires or with 
whom he is brought into contact. It is the 
ability to do this that constitutes the difference 
between the man drudge and the man anxious 
to assume greater responsibilities by mastering 
his necessary duties. 

In a lecture to young men on this subject, 
Henry Ward Beecher said : 

" The young should begin life with a standard 
of excellence before them, to which they should 
readily conform themselves. There should be a 
fixed determination to make the best of one's 
self, in whatever circumstances we may be 
placed. Let the young man determine that 
whatever he undertakes he will do well ; that 
he will make himself master of the business 
upon which he enters, and always prepare him- 
self for advancement by becoming worthy of it. 
It is not opportunity of rising which is wanting, 
so much as the ability to rise. It is not the 



Cultivate Obsei'vation and Judgment. 179 

patronage of friends and the outward helps of 
fortune, to which the prominent men of our 
country owe their elevation, either in wealth or 
influence, so much as to their own vigorous and 
steady exertions. We hear a great many com- 
plaints, both among young men and old, of the 
favoritism of fortune, and the partiality of the 
world ; but observation leads us to believe that, 
to a very great extent, those who deserve pro- 
motion obtain it. Those who are worthy of 
confidence will have confidence reposed in 
them. Those who give evidence of ability and 
industry w T ill find opportunity enough for their 
exercise. " 

Take a familiar illustration. A young man 
engages in some business, and is, in every re- 
spect, a beginner in life. A common education 
is all that he possesses. He knows almost noth- 
ing of the world, and very little of the occupa- 
tion on which he has entered. He performs his 
duty from day to day sufficiently well, and does 
what he is expected to do. But it does not 
enter into his mind to do anything beyond what 
is required, nor to enlarge his capacities by 
reading or reflection. He is, at the best, a steady 
plodding man, who will go forward, if it all, 
very slowly, and will rise, if at all, to no great 
elevation. He is not the sort of person who is 
looked for to occupy a higher position. One 
opportunity of advancement after another may 
come directly within his reach, and he asks the 
influence of friends to help him to secure it. 
They give their aid feebly, because they have 



180 How to Get on in the World. 

no great hopes of success, and are not confident 
of their own recommendation. As a matter of 
course, some one else, more competent or more 
in earnest, steps in before him, and then we hear 
renewed complaints of favoritism and injus- 
tice. Such a one may say in his defence that 
he has been guilty of no dereliction of duty ; 
that no fault has been found with him, and 
that, therefore, he was entitled to advancement. 
But this does not follow. Something more than 
that may reasonably be required. To bestow 
increased confidence, we require the capacity 
and habit of improvement in those whom we 
employ. The man who is entitled to rise is one 
who is always enlarging his capacity, so that he 
is evidently able to do more than he is actually 
doing. 

In every department of business, whether 
mechanical or mercantile, or whatever it may 
be, there is a large field of useful knowledge 
w T hich should be carefully explored. An 
observing eye and an inquiring mind will 
always find enough for examination and study. 
It may not seem to be of immediate use — it 
may have nothing to do with this week's or 
this year's duty — yet it is worth knowing. 
The mind gains vigor by the inquiry, and the 
hand itself gains greater skillfulness by the 
intelligence which directs it. 

The result is all the difference between a 
mere drudge and an intelligent workman ; 
between the mere salesman or clerk and the 
enterprising merchant; between the obscure 



Cultivate Observation and Judgment. 181 

and pettifogging lawyer and the sagacious, 
influential counsellor. It is the difference 
between one who deserves to be, and will be, 
stationary in the world, and one who, having 
determined to make the best of himself, will 
continually rise in influence and true respecta- 
bility. This whole difference we may see every 
day among those who have enjoyed nearly 
equal opportunities. We may allow something 
for what are called the accidents of social influ- 
ence, and the turns of fortune. But, after all 
fair allowance has been made, we shall find that 
the great cause of difference is in the men 
themselves. Let the young man who is begin- 
ning life put away from him all notions of 
advancement without desert. A man of 
honorable feelings will not even desire it. He 
will ever shrink from engaging in duties 
which he is not able fairly to perform. He 
will, first of all, secure to himself the capacity 
of performing them, and then he is ready for 
them whenever they come. 

Without observation and judgment there can 
be no permanent advance. Without observa- 
tion, experience has no value, and the passing 
years add nothing to our fund of useful knowl- 
edge. Judgment is the ability to weigh these 
observations, and use them for our own pro- 
tection or advancement. 

Not only in business, but in science and art, 
observation and good judgment are necessary. 
Excellence in art, as in everything else, can 
only be achieved by dint of painstaking labor 



1 82 How to Get on in the World, 

and a close observation of those whom we 
regard as our superiors. There is nothing less 
accidental than the painting of a fine picture, or 
the chiseling of a noble statue. Every skilled 
touch of the artist's brush or chisel, though 
guided by genius, is the product of unremitting 
study. Sir Joshua Eeynolds was such a 
believer in the force of industry, that he held 
that artistic excellence, " however expressed by 
genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be 
acquired." Writing to Barry he said, " Who- 
ever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed 
any other art, must bring all his mind to bear 
upon that one object from the moment that he 
rises till he goes to bed." And on another 
occasion he said, " Those who are resolved to 
excel must go to their work, willing or unwill- 
ing, morning, noon, and night : they will find 
it no play, but very hard labor." But although 
| diligent application is no doubt absolutely 
necessary for the achievement of the highest 
distinction in art, it is equally true that, with- 
out the inborn genius, no amount of mere indus- 
try, however well applied, will make an artist. 
The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by 
6elf-culture, which is of more avail than all the 
imparted learning of the schools. But even 
genius without good judgment may be an 
unbroken steed without a bridle. 

All great artists and authors have been famed 
for their powers of observation ; indeed, it is 
claimed that it is this power that distinguishes 
them from other men. 



Cultivate Observation and Judgment, 183 

No matter how generous nature has been in 
bestowing the gift of genius, the pursuit of art 
is nevertheless a long and continuous labor. 
Many artists have been precocious, but without 
diligence their precocity would have come to 
nothing. The anecdote related of West is well 
known. When only seven years old, struck 
with the beauty of the sleeping infant of his 
eldest sister, whilst watching by its cradle, he 
ran to seek some paper, and forthwith drew its 
portrait in red and black ink. The little inci- 
dent revealed the artist in him, and it was found 
impossible to draw him from his bent. West 
might have been a greater painter had he not 
been injured by too early success: his fame, 
though great, was not purchased by study, trials 
and difficulties, and it has not been enduring. 

Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged 
himself with tracing figures of men and animals 
on the walls of his father's house with a burnt 
stick. He first directed his attention to portrait 
painting ; but when in Italy, calling one day at 
the house of Zucarelli, and growing weary with 
waiting, he began painting the scene on which 
his friend's chamber window looked. When 
Zucarelli arrived, he was so charmed with the 
picture that he asked if Wilson had not studied 
landscape, to which he replied that he had not. 
" Then I advise you," said the other, " to try ; for 
you are sure of great success." Wilson adopted 
the advice, studied and worked hard, and 
became the first great English landscape 
painter. 



184 How to Get on in the World. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his 
lessons, and took pleasure only in drawing, for 
which his father was accustomed to rebuke 
him. The boy was destined for the profession 
of physic, but his strong instinct for art could 
not be repressed, and he became a painter. 
Gainsborough went sketching, when a school- 
boy, in the woods of Sudbury, and at twelve he 
was a confirmed artist ; he was a keen observer 
and a hard worker — no picturesque feature of 
any scene he had once looked upon escaping his 
diligent pencil. William Blake, a hosier's son, 
employed himself in drawing designs on the 
backs of his father's shop-bills, and making 
sketches on the counter. Edward Bird, when 
a child only three or four years old, would 
mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, 
which he called French and English soldiers. 
A box of colors was purchased for him, and his 
father, desirous of turning his love of art to ac- 
count, put him apprentice to a maker of tea- 
trays ! Out of this trade he gradually raised 
himself, by study and labor, to the rank of a 
Royal Academician. 

Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his les- 
sons, took pleasure in making drawings of the 
letters of the alphabet, and his school exercises 
were more remarkable for the ornaments with 
which he embellished them, than for the matter 
of the exercises themselves. In the latter re- 
spect he was beaten by all the blockheads of 
the school, but in his adornments he stood alone. 
His father put him apprentice to a silversmith, 



Cultivate Observatiori a?id Judgment. 185 

where he learnt to draw, and also to engrave 
spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From 
silver-chasing he went on to teach himself en- 
graving on copper, principally griffins and 
monsters of heraldry, in the course of which 
practice he became ambitious to delineate the 
varieties of human character. The singular ex- 
cellence which he reached in this art was mainly 
the result of careful observation and study. He 
had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of 
committing to memory the precise features of 
any remarkable face, and afterward reproduc- 
ing them on paper ; but if any singularly fan- 
tastic form or odd face came in his way, he 
would make a sketch of it on the spot upon his 
thumb-nail, and carry it home to expand at his 
leisure. Everything fantastical and original 
had a powerful attraction for him, and he wan- 
dered into many out-of-the-way places for the 
purpose of meeting with character. By this 
careful storing of his mind, he was afterward 
enabled to crowd an immense amount of thought 
and treasured observation into his works. 
Hence it is that Hogarth's pictures are so truth- 
ful a memorial of the character, the manners, 
and even the very thoughts of the times in 
which he lived. True painting, he himself ob- 
served, can only be learnt in one school, and 
that is kept by Nature. But he was not a 
highly cultivated man, except in his own walk. 
His school education had been of the slenderest 
kind, scarcely even perfecting him in the art of 
spelling ; his self-culture did the rest. For a 



1 86 How to Get on in the World. 

long time he was in very straitened circum- 
stances, but nevertheless worked on with a 
cheerful heart. Poor though he was, he con- 
trived to live within his small means, and he 
boasted with becoming pride, that he was " a 
punctual paymaster." When he had conquered 
all his difficulties and become a famous and 
thriving man, he loved to dwell upon his early 
labors and privations, and to fight over again 
the battle which ended so honorably to him as 
a man and so gloriously as an artist. " I re- 
member the time," said he on one occasion, 
" when I have gone moping into the city with 
scarce a shilling, but as soon as I have received 
ten guineas there for a plate, I have returned 
home, put on my sword, and sallied out with 
all the confidence of a man who had thousands 
in his pockets." 

Perhaps there is no living man of eminence 
who so well and forcibly illustrates these quali- 
ties of judgment and observation as that great- 
est of living American inventors, Thomas A. 
Edison. 

Mr. Edison, as we have already stated, had 
only a few weeks at school in his whole life. 
He was born in the upper part of New York 
State in 1847. His parents were poor, and 
early in life, to use his own expressive words, 
he " had to start out and hustle." One would 
think that selling newspapers on a railroad 
train was not a calling that afforded any edu- 
cational advantages, but to the man of observa- 
tion there is no position in life, whether in the 



Cultivate Observation and Judgment \ 187 

busy haunts of men or the silence of the 
wilderness, that is not replete with valuable 
information if we but know where to look for 
it, and have the judgment to use it after it is 
obtained. 

Through the favor of a telegraph operator, 
whose child's life he had saved when the 
little one was nearly under the wheels of a 
train, young Edison was enabled to study 
telegraphy. During this apprenticeship, if such 
it may be called, the boy not only learned how 
to send and receive a message, so as to fit him- 
self for the position of operator, but he learned 
all about the mechanism and the batteries of 
the instrument he operated. 

" Nothing escaped Tom Edison's observa- 
tion/ 5 said a man who knew him at this time. 
" He saw everything, and he not only saw it, 
but he set about learning its whys and where- 
fores, and he stuck at it till he had learned all 
there was to be learned about it." 

Said another friend, " I've known Edison 
since he was a boy of fourteen, and of my own 
knowledge I can say he never spent an idle day 
in his life. Often when he should have been 
asleep I have known him to sit up half the 
night reading. He did not take to novels or 
wild Western adventures, but read works on 
mechanics, chemistry and electricity, and he 
mastered them, too. But in addition to his 
reading, which he could only indulge in at odd 
hours, he carefully cultivated his wonderful 
powers of observation, till at length, when he 



1 88 How to Get on in the World. 

was not actually asleep, it may be said he was 
learning all the time. Schools and colleges are 
all very well, but Mr. Edison's career goes to 
show that a man may become famous, prosper- 
ous, and well educated, if he has the necessary 
capacity for observing and weighing." 

Another illustrious example of the same kind 
is the late George W. Childs, of Philadelphia. 
He was born in Baltimore, Md., in 1829, and 
at the age of twelve he had to begin the battle 
of life by taking the position of errand boy in a 
book store. " I had no schooling," he said, when 
speaking of his early struggles, " but I had a 
quenchless thirst for information. I had no 
time to read the books I had to handle and 
carry sometimes in a wheelbarrow, but I kept 
my eyes and ears open. I studied the binding 
and manufacture, though I had not the slight- 
est idea of the contents ; and from these early 
observations I made up my mind that one day 
I would become a publisher on my own ac- 
count." 

How successfully Mr. Childs did this, we all 
know. While yet in his teens, he made his 
way, without money or friends, to Philadelphia, 
and found a place in a book store, where the 
same method of education by observation was 
continued. 

The first time he saw a copy of the Philadel- 
phia Ledger, a time when he had scarcely the 
penny to spare that bought it, he made up his 
mind that one day he would own that paper — 
and he carried out his resolution. 



Cultivate Observation and Judgment. 189 

So excellent was his judgment that not only- 
publishers, but statesmen and bankers sought 
it. From the humblest beginnings George W. 
Childs rose up and up till the greatest men of 
two continents rejoiced in his friendship, and 
his name was on the lips of all who admire a 
noble life devoted to philanthropic deeds. 

Our American biographies are full of exam- 
ples of self-taught men — men who have be- 
come educated through observation, and great 
through good judgment and increasing effort, 
but there are not many of them that commend 
themselves so warmly to the heart as the life of 
the good, wise, and generous George W. Childs. 



CHAPTER XIX 

SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE. 

We have all heard of the " Jack of all trades, 
and master of none." Such men never win, 
though they may excite the admiration of the 
curious by their impractical versatility. 

In early times, even in the early settlement 
of our own country, it was necessary for not 
only men, but women also, to be many-sided in 
their capacity for work ; but the world's swift 
advance has made this unnecessary. A farmer 
can now buy shoes cheaper than he could make 
them at home, and the farmer's wife has no 
longer to learn the art of spinning and weaving. 

A French philosopher in speaking of this 
subject says: "It is well to know something 
about everything, and everything about some- 
thing." That is, general information is always 
useful, but special information is essential to 
special success. 

The field of learning is too vast to be care- 
fully gone over in one lifetime, and the busi- 
ness world is too extensive to permit any man 
to become acquainted with all its topography. 
A man may do a number of things fairly well, 
but he can do only one thing very well. 

Often versatility instead of being a blessing 
is an injury. A few men like Michael Angelo 
in art, Benjamin Franklin in science and let- 
190 



Si7igleness of Purpose. 191 

ters, and Peter Cooper in various departments 
of manufacture have succeeded in everything 
they undertook, but to hold these up as exam- 
ples to be followed would be to make a rule of 
an exception. 

Singleness of purpose is one of the prime 
requisites of success. Fortune is jealous, and 
refuses to be approached from all sides by the 
same suitor. 

We have known men of marked ability, but 
want of purpose, who studied for the ministry 
and failed ; who then studied law — and failed. 
After this they tried medicine and journalism, 
only to fail in each ; whereas, had they stuck 
resolutely to one thing success would not have 
been uncertain. 

A young man may not be able at the very 
start to hit upon the vocation for which he is 
best adapted, but should he find it, he will see 
that his ability to avail himself of its advan- 
tages will depend largely on the energy and 
singleness of purpose displayed in the work for 
which he had no liking. 

There is a famous speech recorded of an old 
Norseman, thoroughly characteristic of the Teu- 
ton. " I believe neither in idols nor demons," 
said he ; "I put my sole trust in my own 
strength of body and soul." The ancient crest 
of a pickaxe with the motto of " Either I will 
find a way or make one," was an expression of 
the same sturdy independence which to this day 
distinguishes the descendants of the Northmen* 
Indeed, nothing could be more characteristic of 



192 How to Get on in the \V07dd. 

the Scandinavian mythology, than that it had 
a god with a hammer. A man's character is 
seen in small matters ; and from even so slight 
a test as the mode in which a man wields a 
hammer, his energy may in some measure be 
inferred. Thus an eminent Frenchman hit off 
in a single phrase the characteristic quality of 
the inhabitants of a particular district, in which 
a friend of his proposed to settle and buy land. 
" Beware," said he, " of making a purchase 
there ; I know the men of that Department ; the 
pupils who come from it to our veterinary school 
at Paris do not strike hard upon the anvil; they 
want energy; and you will not get a satisfactory 
return on any capital you may invest there." 

Hugh Miller said the only school in which 
he was properly taught was " that world-wide 
school in which toil and hardship are the severe 
but noble teachers." He who allows his appli- 
cation to falter, or shirks his work on frivolous 
pretexts, is on the sure road to ultimate failure. 
Let any task be undertaken as a thing not pos- 
sible to be evaded, and it will soon come to be 
performed with alacrity and cheerfulness. 
Charles IX. of Sweden was a firm believer in 
the power of will, even in youth. Laying his 
hand on the head of his youngest son when en- 
gaged on a difficult task, he exclaimed, " He 
shall do it ! he shall do it ! " The habit of ap- 
plication becomes easy in time, like every other 
habit. Thus persons with comparatively mod- 
erate powers will accomplish much, if they apply 
themselves wholly and indefatigably to one 



Singleness of Purpose. 193 

thing at a time. Fowell Buxton placed his 
confidence in ordinary means and extraordinary 
application ; realizing the Scriptural injunction, 
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy might ;" and he attributed his own 
success in life to his practice of " being a whole 
man to one thing at a time." 

" Where there is a will there is a way," is an 
old and true saying. He who resolves upon 
doing a thing, by that very resolution often 
scales the barriers to it, and secures its achieve- 
ment. To think we are able, is almost to be so 
— to determine upon attainment is frequently 
attainment itself. Thus, earnest resolution has 
often seemed to have about it almost a savor of 
omnipotence. The strength of Suwarrow's 
character lay in his power of willing, and, like 
most resolute persons, he preached it up as a 
system. " You can only half will," he would 
say to people who failed. Like Richelieu and 
Napoleon, he would have the word "impossi- 
ble " banished from the dictionary. " I don't 
know," " I can't," and " impossible," were words 
which he detested above all others. " Learn ! 
Do ! Try !" he would exclaim. His biographer 
has said of him, that he furnished a remarkable 
illustration of what may be effected by the en- 
ergetic development and exercise of faculties 
the germs of which at least are in every human 
heart. 

One of Napoleon's favorite maxims was, 
"The truest wisdom is a resolute determina- 
tion." His life, beyond most others, vividly 



194 How to Get on in the World. 

showed what a powerful and unscrupulous will 
could accomplish. He threw his whole force 
of body and mind direct upon his work. Imbe- 
cile rulers and the nations they governed went 
down before him in succession. He was told 
that the Alps stood in the way of his armies. 
" There shall be no Alps," he said, and the road 
across the Simplon was constructed, through a 
district formerly almost inaccessible. " Impos- 
sible," said he, " is a word only to be found in 
the dictionary of fools." He was a man who 
toiled terribly ; sometimes employing and 
exhausting four secretaries at a time. He 
spared no one, not even himself. His influence 
inspired other men, and put a new life into them. 
" I made my generals out of mud " he said. 
But all was of no avail ; for Napoleon's intense 
selfishness was his ruin, and the ruin of France, 
which he left a prey to anarchy. 

Before the man resolutely impelled to action 
by singleness of purpose, every obstacle disap- 
pears as he approaches, and every lesson of 
experience becomes the stepping-stone to further 
victories in the same direction. 

It is this singleness of purpose, this absorp- 
tion in a great life-work, that nerves our mis- 
sionaries in their exile. A splendid example 
of this is presented in the career of the great 
missionary and explorer, Dr. Livingstone. 

He has told the story of his life in that 
modest and unassuming manner which is so 
characteristic of the man himself. His ances- 
tors were poor but honest Highlanders, and it is 



Singleness of Purpose. 195 

related of one of them, renowned in his district 
for wisdom and prudence, that when on his 
death-bed, he called his children round him 
and left them these words, the only legacy he 
had to bequeath : " In my life-time/' said he, 
" I have searched most carefully through all 
the traditions I could find of our family, and I 
never could discover that there was a dishonest 
man among our forefathers ; if, therefore, any 
of you, or any of your children, should take to 
dishonest ways, it will not be because it runs in 
our blood ; it does not belong to you : I leave 
this precept with you — Be honest." At the 
age of ten Livingstone was sent to work in a 
cotton factory near Glasgow as a "piecer." 
With part of his first week's wages he bought 
a Latin grammar, and began to learn that 
language, pursuing the study for years at a 
night-school. He would sit up conning his 
lessons till twelve or later, when not sent to bed 
by his mother, for he had to be up and at work 
in the factory every morning by six. In this 
way he plodded through Virgil and Horace, 
also reading extensively all books, excepting 
novels, that came in his way, but more espe- 
cially scientific works and books of travels. 
He occupied his spare hours, which were but 
few, in the pursuit of botany, scouring the 
neighborhood to collect plants. He even 
carried on his reading amidst the roar of the 
factory machinery, so placing the book upon 
the spinning-jenny which he worked, that he 
could catch sentence after sentence as he passed 



196 How to Get on in the World. 

it. In this way the persevering youth acquired 
vnuch useful knowledge ; and as he grew older, 
the desire possessed him of becoming a mis- 
sionary to the heathen. With this object he 
set himself to obtain a medical education, in 
order the better to be qualified for the work. 
He accordingly economized his earnings, and 
saved as much money as enabled him to support 
himself while attending the Medical and Greek 
classes, as well as the Divinity Lectures, at 
Glasgow, for several winters, working as a 
cotton-spinner during the remainder of each 
year. He thus supported himself, during his 
college career, entirely by his own earnings as 
a factory workman, never having received a 
farthing of help from any other source. " Look- 
ing back now," he honestly said, " at that life 
of toil, I cannot but feel thankful that it formed 
such a material part of my early education ; 
and, were it possible, I should like to begin 
life over again in the same lowly style, and to 
pass through the same hardy training." At 
length he finished his medical curriculum, 
wrote his Latin thesis, passed his examinations, 
and was admitted a licentiate of the Faculty 
of Physicians and Surgeons. At first he 
thought of going to China, but the war then 
waging with that country prevented his follow- 
ing out the idea ; and having offered his services 
to the London Missionary Society, he was by 
them sent out to Africa, which he reached in 
1840. He had intended to proceed to China 
by his own efforts ; and he says the only pang 



Singleness of Purpose. 197 

he had in going to Africa at the charge of the 
London Missionary Society was, because "it 
was not quite agreeable to one accustomed to 
work his own way to become, in a manner, 
dependent upon others." Arrived in Africa, 
he set to work with great zeal. He could not 
brook the idea of merely entering upon the 
labors of others, but cut out a large sphere of 
independent work, preparing himself for it by 
undertaking manual labor in building and other 
handicraft employment, in addition to teaching, 
which, he says, " made me generally as much 
exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings 
as ever I had been when a cotton-spinner." 
Whilst laboring amongst the Bechuanas, he 
dug canals, built houses, cultivated fields, 
reared cattle, and taught the natives to work 
as well as to worship. When he first started with 
a party of them on foot upon a long journey, 
he overheard their observations upon his 
appearance and powers. " He is not strong," 
said they ; " he is quite slim, and only appears 
stout because he puts himself into those bags 
(tronsers) : he will soon knock up." This 
caused the missionary's Highland blood to rise, 
and made him despise the fatigue of keeping 
them all at the top of their speed for days 
together, until he heard them expressing proper 
opinions of his pedestrian powers. What he 
did in Africa, and how he worked, may be 
learnt from his own " Missionary Travels," 
one of the most fascinating books of its kind 
that has ever been given to the public. One 



198 How to Get on in the World. 

of his last known acts is thoroughly character- 
istic of the man. The " Birkenhead " steam- 
launch, which he took out with him to Africa, 
having proved a failure, he sent home orders 
for the construction of another vessel at an 
estimated cost of £2000. This sum he proposed 
to defray out of the means which he had set 
aside for his children, arising from the profits 
of his books of travel. " The children must 
make it up themselves/ ' was in effect his 
expression in sending home the order for the 
appropriation of the money. 

The career of John Howard was throughout 
a striking illustration of the same power of 
patient purpose. His sublime life proved that 
even physical weakness could remove mountains 
in the pursuit of an end recommended by duty. 
The idea of ameliorating the condition of 
prisoners engrossed his whole thoughts, and 
possessed him like a passion ; and no toil, nor 
danger, nor bodily suffering could turn him 
from that great object of his life. Though a 
man of no genius and but moderate talent, his 
heart was pure and his will was strong. Even 
in his own time he achieved a remarkable 
degree of success ; and his influence did not die 
with him, for it has continued powerfully to 
affect not only the legislation of his own 
country, but of all civilized nations, down to 
the present hour. 

Horace Mann, famous as a teacher and 
reformer in his day, was urged by his friends 
in Ohio to go to Congress. He replied: "I 



Singleness of Purpose. 199 

have a great deal of respect for men in public 
life, but I have more respect for my own life- 
work. If I know anything, it is the science or 
art of teaching, and to this work, please God, I 
shall devote the whole of my life." And he 
kept his word. 

Singleness of purpose implies firmness, for in 
this day of change and speculation, the young 
man who has saved up a little money, hoping 
one day to go into business for himself, will find 
on every hand temptations to invest in enter- 
prises of which he knows nothing. Here his 
resolution will be tested. Remember there is 
no element of human character so potential for 
weal or woe as firmness. To the merchant and 
the man of business it is all-important. Before 
its irresistible energy the most formidable ob- 
stacles become as cobweb barriers in its path. 
Difficulties, the terror of which causes the timid 
and pampered sons of luxury to shrink back 
with dismay, provoke from the man of lofty de- 
termination only a smile. The whole history 
of our race — all nature, indeed — teems with ex- 
amples to show what wonders may be accom- 
plished by resolute perseverance and patient toil. 

It is related of Tamerlane, the terror of whose 
arms spread through all the Eastern nations, 
and whom victory attended at almost every 
step, that he once learned from an insect a les- 
son of perseverance, which had a striking effect 
on his future character and success. 

When closely pursued by his enemies, as a 
contemporary writer tells the incident, he took 
refuge in some old ruins, where, left to his 



200 How to Get on in the World. 

solitary musings, he espied an ant tugging and 
striving to carry a single grain of corn. His 
unavailing efforts were repeated sixty-nine 
times, and at each brave attempt, as soon as he 
reached a certain point of projection, he fell 
back with his burden, unable to surmount it ; 
but the seventieth time he bore away his spoil 
in triumph, and left the wondering hero reani- 
mated and exulting in the hope of future victory. 
How pregnant the lesson this incident con- 
veys ! How many thousand instances there are 
in which inglorious defeat ends the career of 
the timid and desponding, when the same te- 
nacity of purpose would crown it with tri- 
umphant success. 

Resolution is almost omnipotent. It was well 
observed by a heathen moralist, that it is not 
because things are difficult that we dare not 
undertake them. Be, then, bold in spirit. In- 
dulge no doubts. Shakespeare says truly and 
wisely — 

"Our doubts are traitors, 

And make us lose the good we oft might win, 

By fearing to attempt." 

In the practical pursuit of our high aim, let 
us never lose sight of it in the slightest in- 
stance ; for it is more by a disregard of small 
things, than by open and flagrant offences, that 
men come short of excellence. There is always 
a right and a wrong ; and, if you ever doubt, 
be sure you take not the wrong. Observe this 
rule, and every experience will be to you a 
means of advancement. 



CHAPTER XX. 

BUSINESS AND BRAINS. 

Many, prompted no doubt by a feeling of 
envy, are apt to sneer at the culture and mental 
ability of the men who have won in business. 
" Dumb luck," " mean plodding," " the robbery 
of employes," these and other reasons are as- 
signed by the unreasoning and uncharitable for 
the prosperity of men w T ho won with fewer ad- 
vantages than themselves. 

Every student of the world's progress knows 
that business men have done even more than 
great authors for the advance of civilization. 
And we all know, though the world is apt 
to kneel to military idols, that inventors have 
done far more than have soldiers for the good 
of humanity. 

The man who succeeds in commerce, trade, 
or manufactures, thereby shows a foresight and 
executive ability that would surely have com- 
manded success in any other calling. Men who 
know books and nothing else are apt to imagine 
that the merchant, whose life is devoted to facts, 
figures, and results, must by reason of that be 
wanting in the higher intellectual faculties. 
Nor is this belief wholly confined to authors in 
America. 

Hazlitt, in one of his clever essays, repre- 
sents the man of business as a mean sort of 
person put in a go-cart, yoked to a trade or 
201 



20? How w Get on in the World. 

profession * alleging that all he has to do is, not 
to go out of the beaten track, but merely to let 
his affairs take their own course. " The great 
requisite/' he says, " for the prosperous man- 
agement of ordinary business is the want of 
imagination, or of any ideas but those of cus- 
tom and interest on the narrowest scale." But 
nothing could be more one-sided, and in effect 
untrue, than such a definition. Of course, 
there are narrow-minded men of business, as 
there are narrow-minded scientific men, literary 
men and legislators ; but there are also business 
men of large and comprehensive minds, capable 
of action on the very largest scale. As Burke 
said in his speech on the India bill, he knew 
statesmen who were peddlers, and merchants 
who acted in the spirit of statesmen. 

If we take into account the qualities neces- 
sary for the successful conduct of any impor- 
tant undertaking — that it requires special apti- 
tude, promptitude of action on emergencies, 
capacity for organizing the labor often of large 
numbers of men, great tact and knowledge of 
human nature, constant self-culture, and 
growing experience in the practical affairs 
of life — it must, we think, be obvious that 
the school of business is by no means 
so narrow as some writers would have us 
believe. Mr. Helps spoke much nearer the 
truth when he said that consummate men of 
business are as rare almost as great poets — 
rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and mar- 
tyrs. Indeed, of no other pursuit can it so 



Business and Brains. 203 

emphatically be said, as of this, that " business 
makes men." 

It has, however, been a favorite fallacy with 
dunces in all times that men of genius are un- 
fitted for business, as well as that business oc- 
cupations unfit men for the pursuits of genius. 
The unhappy youth who committed suicide a 
few years since because he had been " born to 
be a man and condemned to be a grocer/' 
proved by the act that his soul was not equal 
even to the dignity of grocer. For it is not 
the calling that degrades the man, but the man 
that degrades the calling. All work that brings 
honest gain is honorable, whether it be of hand 
or mind. The fingers may be soiled, yet the 
heart remain pure ; for it is not material so 
much as moral dirt that defiles — greed far more 
than grime, and vice than verdigris. 

The greatest have not disdained to labor hon- 
estly and usefully for a living, though at the 
same time aiming after higher things. Thales, 
the first of the seven sages ; Solon, the second 
founder of Athens, and Hyperates, the mathe- 
matician, were all traders. Plato, called the 
Divine by reason of the excellence of his 
wisdom, defrayed his traveling expenses in 
Egypt by the profits derived from the oil which 
he sold during his journey. Spinoza maintained 
himself by polishing glasses while he pursued 
his philosophical investigations. Linnaeus, the 
great botanist, prosecuted his studies while 
hammering leather and making shoes. Shake- 
speare was the successful manager of a theatre— 



204 How to Get on in the World. 

perhaps priding himself more upon his practical 
qualities in that capacity than on his writing of 
plays and poetry. Pope was of opinion that 
Shakespeare's principal object in cultivating 
literature was to secure an honest independence. 
Indeed, he seems to have been altogether in- 
different to literary reputation. It is not known 
that he superintended the publication of a 
single play, or even sanctioned the printing of 
one ; and the chronology of his writings is still 
a mystery. It is certain, however, that he 
prospered in his business, and realized sufficient 
to enable him to retire upon a competency to 
his native town of Stratford-upon-Avon. 

Chaucer was in early life a soldier, and after- 
ward an effective Commissioner of Customs, 
and Inspector of Woods and Crown Lands. 
Spenser was secretary to the Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, was afterward Sheriff of Cork, and is 
said to have been shrewd and attentive in mat- 
ters of business. Milton, originally a school- 
master, was elevated to the post of Secretary to 
the Council of State during the Commonwealth ; 
and the extant Order-book of the Council, as 
well as many of Milton's letters which are pre- 
served, give abundant evidence of his activity 
and usefulness in that office. Sir Isaac Newton 
proved himself an efficient Master of the Mint, 
the new coinage of 1694 having been carried 
on under his immediate personal superintend- 
ence. Cowper prided himself upon his business 
punctuality, though he confessed that he "never 
knew a poet, except himself, that was punctual 



Business and Brains. 205 

In anything." But against this we may 
set the lives of Wordsworth and Scott — the 
former a distributor of stamps, the latter a 
clerk to the Court of Session — both of whom, 
though great poets, were eminently punctual 
and practical men of business. David Ricardo, 
amidst the occupations of his daily business as 
a London stock-jobber, in conducting which he 
acquired an ample fortune, was able to concen- 
trate his mind upon his favorite subject — on 
which he was enabled to throw great light — the 
principles of political economy ; for he united 
in himself the sagacious commercial man and 
the profound philosopher. Baily, the eminent 
astronomer, was another stock-broker ; and 
Allen, the chemist, was a silk manufacturer. 

We have abundant illustrations, in our own 
day, of the fact, that the highest intellectual 
power is not incompatible with the active and 
efficient performance of routine duties. Grote, 
the great historian of Greece, was a London 
banker. And it is said that when John Stuart 
Mill, one of the greatest modern thinkers, retired 
from the Examiner's office of an important 
company, he carried with him the admira- 
tion and esteem of his fellow-officers, not on 
account of his high views of philosophy, but 
because of the high standard of efficiency w T hich 
he had established in his office, and the thor- 
oughly satisfactory manner in which he had 
conducted the business of his department. 

The path of success in business is usually the 
path of common sense. Patient labor and 



206 How to Get on in the World. 

application are as necessary here as in the 
acquisition of knowledge or the pursuit of 
science. The old Greeks said, " To become an 
able man in any profession, three things are 
necessary — nature, study, and practice." In 
business, practice, wisely and diligently im- 
proved, is the great secret of success. Some 
may make what are called " lucky hits, " but 
like money earned by gambling, such " hits " 
may only serve to lure one to ruin. Bacon was 
accustomed to say that it was in business as in 
ways — the nearest way was commonly the foul- 
est, and that if a man would go the fairest way 
he must go somewhat about. The journey may 
occupy a longer time, but the pleasure of the 
labor involved by it, and the enjoyment of the 
results produced, will be more genuine and 
unalloyed. To have a daily appointed task of 
even common drudgery to do makes the rest of 
life feel all the sweeter. 

One of the best illustrations we know of, of 
great natnral abilities winning great success in 
mechanical fields is the career of the now 
famous Andrew Carnegie, of Pennsylvania. 

This remarkable man was born in Scotland 
in 1835. When ten years of age, his parents, 
who were poor, moved to Pittsburg. Then, as 
now, there were excellent public schools in the 
" Smoky City," but young Carnegie was not able 
to avail himself of their advantages, as he 
desired to do. While still in his teens he found 
employment in running a stationary engine. 
He did his work well, and every moment not 
required by his engine was devoted to study. 



Business and Brains. 207 

Before the youth had seen a practical key- 
board, he had mastered the principles of teleg- 
raphy, and succeeded, by reason of the knowledge 
obtained in this way, in getting a position as an 
operator. At that time all messages were read 
from rolls of paper, on which the Morse char- 
acters were indented ; but Andrew Carnegie, 
while still under twenty-one, was the first 
operator in the world to demonstrate, that to a 
skillful man the roll was unnecessary. He 
learned to read by sound then, as all operators 
do now. What scholar will say that a high 
order of intellect was not involved in this 
achievement ? 

"Hard work, close observation, strict econ- 
omy, and the determination to give my employer 
the best that was in me, without regard to the 
compensation, these were my impelling motives 
in those early days, and to these I attribute all 
the prosperity with which Heaven has blessed 
me." This is what Mr. Carnegie says of him- 
self, and his words are full of encouragement 
and inspiration to the young man who has the 
same obstacles to overcome. 

" It is not what you make, but what you save 
that brings wealth." Mr. Carnegie discovered 
this early in life, and while he helped his parents 
like a dutiful son, he never spent an unnecessary 
cent on himself. 

" I was too busy working and studying to con- 
tract the habits that make such inroads on the 
health and pockets of young men," says Mr. 
Carnegie, " and this helped me in many ways." 



208 How to Get o?i in the World. 

While still young he had an opportunity to 
invest his savings in the first sleeping car, in- 
vented by Woodruff, and out of this he got his 
first good start. 

Active, industrious, and quick to foresee 
results, he took an interest in the oil discoveries 
of Pennsylvania, and with such success that 
from the profits he was enabled to organize the 
greatest series of rolling mills and foundries in 
the world. 

Mr. Carnegie is still in the prime of life. 
He has spent several fortunes in good works, 
and is still a very rich as he is certainly a highly 
honored man. But the point we wish to make 
is that Mr. Carnegie is a fine example of the 
high order of intellect necessary for the greatest 
success in the business world. 

Although self-educated, Mr. Carnegie is an 
author of world-wide reputation. His work 
44 Triumphant .Democracy " is a splendid vindi- 
cation of the institutions of his adopted country. 
" He knows more about books," says one who 
knows Mr. Carnegie well, " than half the authors, 
and he can find himself in no society where he 
does not find himself the peer of the best." 

Those who fail in life are, however, very apt 
to assume a tone of injured innocence, and con- 
clude too hastily that everybody excepting 
themselves has had a hand in their personal 
misfortunes. An eminent w T riter lately pub- 
lished a book, in which he described his numer- 
ous failures in business, naively admitting, at 
the same time, that he was ignorant of the 



Business and Brains, 209 

multiplication-table ; and he came to the conclu- 
sion that the real cause of his ill-success in 
life was the money-worshiping spirit of the age. 
Lamartine also did not hesitate to profess his 
contempt for arithmetic ; but, had it been less, 
probably we should not have witnessed the un- 
seemly spectacle of the admirers of that distin- 
guished personage engaged in collecting sub- 
scriptions for his support in his old age. 

Again, some consider themselves born to ill- 
luck, and make up their minds that the world 
invariably goes against them without any fault 
on their own part. We have heard of a person 
of this sort who went so far as to declare hi& 
belief that if he had been a hatter, people 
would have been born without heads ! There 
is, however, a Russian proverb which says that 
Misfortune is next door to Stupidity ; and it 
will often be found that men who are constantly 
lamenting their ill-luck, are in some way 
reaping the consequences of their own neglect, 
mismanagement, improvidence, or want of ap- 
plication. Dr. Johnson, who came up to Lon- 
don with a single guinea in his pocket, and who 
once accurately described himself in his signa- 
ture to a letter addressed to a noble lord, as 
Impransm, or Dinnerless, has honestly said, 
"All the complaints which are made of the 
world are unjust; I never knew a man of 
merit neglected ; it was generally by his own 
fault that he failed of success/' 

Did you ever think of the intellectual quali- 
fications essential to the successful business- 



210 How to Get on in the World. 

man ? No ? Well, it would be very difficult 
to name such a qualification which the business 
man cannot make available. 

Attention, application, accuracy, method, 
punctuality and dispatch, are the principal 
qualities required for the efficient conduct of 
business of any sort. These, at first sight, may 
appear to be small matters ; and yet they are 
of essential importance to human happiness, 
well-being, and usefulness. They are little 
things, it is true ; but human life is made up of 
comparative trifles. It is the repetition of little 
acts which constitutes not only the sum of hu- 
man character, but which determines the charac- 
ter of nations. And where men or nations have 
broken down, it will almost invariably be found 
that neglect of little things was the rock on 
which they split. Every human being has du- 
ties to be performed, and, therefore, has need 
of cultivating the capacity for doing them ; 
whether the sphere of action be the manage- 
ment of a household, the conduct of a trade or 
profession, or the government of a nation. 

In addition to the ordinary working qualities, 
the business man of the highest class requires 
quick perception and firmness in the execution 
of his plans. Tact is also important ; and 
though this is partly the gift of nature, it is yet 
capable of being cultivated and developed by 
observation and experience. Men of this 
quality are quick to see the right mode of ac- 
tion, and if they have decision of purpose, are 
prompt to carry out their undertakings to a 



Business and Brains. 2 1 1 

successful issue. These qualities are especially 
valuable, and indeed indispensable, in those 
who direct the action of other men on a large 
scale, as for instance, in the case of the com- 
mander of an army in the field. It is not 
merely necessary that the general should be 
great as a warrior, but also as a man of business. 
He must possess great tact, much knowledge of 
character, and ability to organize the move- 
ments of a large mass of men, whom he has to 
feed, clothe, and furnish with whatever may be 
necessary in order that they may keep the field 
and win battles. In these respects Napoleon 
and Wellington w r ere both first-rate men of 
business. 

Not only does business require the highest 
order of intellect, but successful business men, 
particularly in America, have been the patrons 
of the arts and sciences and the founders of 
great schools. The prosperity of Princeton is 
largely due to Marquand and Bonner. The 
great Cooper Institute for the free education of 
poor boys and girls, in the applied arts and 
sciences, will endure as long as New York city, 
as a monument to the intellectual forethought 
and noble munificence of Peter Cooper. Girard 
College, in Philadelphia, which yearly sends 
out hundreds of young men — orphans on en- 
trance, but admirable fitted to work their way 
in life — is a refutation of the charge that suc- 
cessful business men do not appreciate culture. 

Lehigh University was founded by Judge 
Asa Packer, of Mauch Chunk, who began life 



212 How to Get on in the World. 

as a canal-boat man. Lafayette College, Easton, 
points with pride to Pardee Hall, the gift of a 
man who began the life-battle without money 
or friends. Vanderbilt University, Stanford 
University, and scores of great schools go to 
prove that the great business men who endowed 
them, were not indifferent to culture and the 
needs of higher education. 

Yes, business requires brains, and the better 
the brains and the more thorough their train- 
ing? tne greater the assurance of success. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

PUT MONEY IN THY PURSE HONESTLY. 

" How a man uses money — makes it, saves 
it, and spends it — is perhaps one of the best 
tests of practical wisdom," says Mr. Smiles. 
Although money ought by no means to be re- 
garded as a chief end of man's life, neither is 
it a trifling matter, to be held in philosophic 
contempt, representing, as it does, to so large 
an extent, the means of physical comfort and 
social well-being. Indeed, some of the finest 
qualities of human nature are intimately rela- 
ted to the right use of money ; such as gener- 
osity, honesty, justice, and self-sacrifice ; as 
well as the practical virtues of economy and 
providence. On the other hand, there are their 
counterparts of avarice, fraud, injustice, and 
selfishness, as displayed by the inordinate 
lovers of gain ; and the vices of thriftlessness, 
extravagance, and improvidence, on the part 
of those who misuse and abuse the means in- 
trusted to them. "So that," as is wisely 
observed by Henry Taylor in his thoughtful 
" Notes from Life," " a right measure and man- 
ner in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, 
lending, borrowing, and bequeathing, would 
almost argue a perfect man." 

Comfort in wordly circumstances is a con- 
dition which every man is justified in striving 
to attain by all worthy means. It secures that 
213 



214 How to Get on in the World. 

physical satisfaction which is necessary for the 
culture of the better part of his nature ; and 
enables him to provide for those of his own 
household, without which, says the apostle, a 
man is " worse than an infidel. " Nor ought 
the duty to be any the less pleasing to us, that 
the respect which our fellow-men entertain for 
us in no slight degree depends upon the man- 
ner in which we exercise the opportunities 
which present themselves for our honorable 
advancement in life. The very effort required 
to be made to succeed in life with this object, 
is of itself an education : stimulating a man's 
sense of self-respect, bringing out his practical 
qualities, and disciplining him in the exercise 
of patience, perseverance, and such like virtues. 
The provident and careful man must neces- 
sarily be a thoughtful man, for he lives not 
merely for the present, but with provident 
forecast makes arrangements for the future. 
He must also be a temperate man, and exer- 
cise the virtue of self-denial, than which 
nothing is so much calculated to give strength 
to the character. John Sterling says truly, 
that " the worst education which teaches self- 
denial, is better than the best which teaches 
everything else and not that." The Romans 
rightly employed the same word (virtus) to 
designate courage, which is in a physical sense 
what the other is in a moral ; the highest vir- 
tue of all being victory over ourselves. 

Hence the lesson of self-denial — the sacrifi- 
cing of a present gratification for a future 



Put Money in Thy Purse Honestly, 215 

good — is one of the last that is learnt. Those 
classes which work the hardest might naturally 
be expected to value the most the money which 
they earn. Yet the readiness with which so 
many are accustomed to eat up and drink up 
their earnings as they go, renders them, to a 
great extent, dependent upon the frugal. 

Men of business are accustomed to quote the 
maxim that "Time is money ; " but it is more ; 
the proper improvement of it is self-culture, 
self-improvement, and growth of character. 
An hour wasted daily on trifles or in indolence, 
would, if devoted to self-improvement, make an 
ignorant man wise in a few years, and, em- 
ployed in good works, would make his life 
fruitful, and death a harvest of worthy deeds. 
Fifteen minutes a day devoted to self-improve- 
ment, will be felt at the end of the year. Good 
thoughts and carefully gathered experience 
take up no room, and may be carried about as 
our companions everywhere, without cost or 
incumbrance. An economical use of time is the 
true mode of securing leisure : it enables us to 
get through business and carry it forward, 
instead of being driven by it. On the other 
hand, the miscalculation of time involves us in 
perpetual hurry, confusion, and difficulties ; 
and life becomes a mere shuffle of expedients, 
usually followed by disaster. Nelson once said, 
" I owe all my success in life to having been 
always a quarter of an hour before my time." 

Some take no thought of the value of money 
until they have come to an end of it, and many 



216 How to Get on in the World. 

do the same with their time. The hours are 
allowed to flow by unemployed, and then, 
when life is fast waning, they bethink them- 
selves of the duty of making a wiser use of it. 
But the habit of listlessness and idleness may 
already have become confirmed, and they are 
unable to break the bonds with which they 
have permitted themselves to become bound. 
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost 
knowledge by study, lost health by temperance 
or medicine, but lost time is gone forever. 

A proper consideration of the value of time 
will also inspire habits of punctuality. " Punc- 
tuality," said Louis XIV., " is the politeness 
of kings." It is also the duty of gentlemen, 
and the necessity of men of business. Nothing 
begets confidence in a man sooner than the 
practice of this virtue, and nothing shakes con- 
fidence sooner than the want of it. He who 
holds to his appointment and does not keep you 
waiting for him, shows that he has regard for 
your time as well as for his own. Thus punc- 
tuality is one of the modes by which we testify 
our personal respect for those whom we are 
called upon to meet in the business of life. It 
is also conscientiousness, in a measure ; for an 
appointment is a contract, expressed or implied, 
and he who does not keep it breaks faith, as 
well as dishonestly uses other people's time, and 
thus inevitably loses character. We naturally 
come to the conclusion that the person who is 
careless about time is careless about business, 
and that he is not the one to be trusted with 



Put Money in Thy Purse Houestly. 217 

the transaction of matters of importance. 
When Washington's secretary excused himself 
for the lateness of his attendance and laid the 
blame upon his watch, his master quietly said, 
u Then you must get another watch, or I 
another secretary." 

The person who is negligent of time and its 
employment is usually found to be a general 
disturber of others' peace and serenity. It was 
wittily said by Lord Chesterfield of the old 
Duke of Newcastle — " His Grace loses an hour 
in the morning, and is looking for it all the 
rest of the day." Everybody with whom the 
unpunctual man has to do is thrown from time 
to time into a state of fever : he is systemati- 
cally late ; regular only in his irregularity. 
He conducts his dawdling as if upon system ; 
arrives at his appointment after time ; gets to 
the railway station ofter the train has started ; 
posts his letter when the box has closed. Thus 
business is thrown into confusion, and every- 
body concerned is put out of temper. 

To secure independence, the practice of 
simple economy is all that is necessary. Econ- 
omy requires neither superior courage nor 
eminent virtue ; it is satisfied with ordinary 
energy, and the capacity of average minds. 
Economy, at bottom, is but the spirit of order 
applied in the administration of domestic affairs : 
it means management, regularity, prudence, 
and the avoidance of waste. The spirit of 
economy was expressed by our Divine Master 
in the words, " Gather up the fragments that 



2i 8 How to Get on in the World. 

remain, so that nothing may be lost." His 
omnipotence did not disdain the small things 
of life ; and even while revealing His infinite 
power to the multitude, He taught the pregnant 
lesson of carefulness, of which all stand so 
much in need. 

Economy also means the power of resisting 
present gratification for the purpose of securing 
a future good, and in this light it represents 
the ascendency of reason over the animal 
instincts. It is altogether different from 
penuriousness : for it is economy that can 
always best afford to be generous. It does not 
make money an idol, but regards it as a useful 
agent. As Dean Swift observes, "we must 
carry money in the head, not in the heart." 
Economy may be styled the daughter of Prud- 
ence, the sister of Temperance, and the mother 
of Liberty. It is eminently conservative — 
conservative of character, of domestic happi- 
ness, and social well-being. It is, in short, the 
exhibition of self-help in one of its best forms. 

Francis Horner's father gave him this advice 
on entering life : " Whilst I wish you to be 
comfortable in every respect, I cannot too 
strongly inculcate economy. It is a necessary 
virtue to all ; and however the shallow part of 
mankind may despise it, it certainly leads to 
independence, which is a grand object to every 
man of a high spirit." 

Every man ought to contrive to live within 
his means. This practice is of the very essence 
of honesty. For if a man does not manage 



Put Money in Thy Purse Honestly. 219 

honestly to live within his own means, he must 
necessarily be living dishonestly upon the means 
of somebody else. Those who are careless about 
pergonal expenditure, and consider merely their 
own gratification, without regard for the com- 
fort of others, generally find out the real uses 
of money when it is too late. Though by nature 
generous, these thriftless persons are often driven 
in the end to do very shabby things. They 
waste their money as they do their time ; draw 
bills upon the future ; anticipate their earnings ; 
and are thus under the necessity of dragging 
after them a load of debts and obligations, 
which seriously affect their actions as free and 
independent men. 

It was a maxim of Lord Bacon, that when it 
was necessary to economize, it was better to look 
after petty savings than to descend to petty 
gettings. The loose cash which many persons 
throw away uselessly, and worse, would often 
form a basis of fortune and independence for 
life. These wasters are their own worst ene- 
mies, though generally found amongst the ranks 
of those who rail at the injustice of " the world." 
But if a man will not be his own friend, how 
can he expect that others will be. Orderly men 
of moderate means have always something left 
in their pockets to help others ; whereas, your 
prodigal and careless fellows who spend all, 
never find an opportunity for helping anybody. 
It is poor economy, however, to be a scrub. 
Narrow-mindedness in living and in dealing is 
generally short-sighted, and leads to failure. 



220 How to Get on in the World. 

Generosity and liberality, like honesty, always 
prove the best policy after all. Though Jenk- 
inson, in the " Vicar of Wakefield," cheated his 
kind-hearted neighbor Flamborough in one way 
or another every year, " Flamborough," said he, 
" has been regularly growing in riches, while I 
have come to poverty and a jail." And practical 
life abounds in cases of brilliant results from a 
course of generous and honest policy. 

The proverb says that " an empty bag cannot 
stand upright ;" neither can a man who is in 
debt. It is also difficult for a man who is in 
debt to be truthful ; hence, it is said that lying 
rides on debt's back. The debtor has to frame 
excuses to his creditor for postponing payment 
of the money he owes him, and probably also 
to contrive falsehoods. It is easy enough for a 
man who will exercise a healthy resolution, to 
avoid incurring the first obligation ; but the 
facility with which that has been incurred often 
becomes a temptation to a second ; and very 
soon the unfortunate borrower becomes so 
entangled that no late exertion of industry can 
set him free. The first step in debt is like the 
first step in falsehood ; almost involving the 
necessity of proceeding in the same course, debt 
following debt, as lie follows lie. Haydon, the 
painter, dated his decline from the day on 
which he first borrowed money. He realized 
the truth of the proverb, " Who goes a-borrow- 
ing, goes a-sorrowing." The significant entry 
in his diary is : " Here began debt and obliga- 
tion, out of which I have never been and never 



Put Mo7iey in Thy Purse Honestly. 221 

shall be extricated as long as I live." His 
autobiography shows but too painfully how 
embarrassment in money matters produces 
poignant distress of mind, utter incapacity for 
work, and constantly recurring humiliations. 
The written advice which he gave to a youth 
when entering the navy was as follows : " Never 
purchase any enjoyment if it cannot be pro- 
cured without borrowing of others. Never 
borrow money ; it is degrading. I do not say 
never lend, but never lend if by lending you 
render yourself unable to pay what you owe ; 
but under any circumstances never borrow." 
Fichte, the poor student, refused to accept even 
presents from his still poorer parents. 

Dr. Johnson held that early debt is ruin. 
His words on the subject are weighty, and 
worthy of being held in remembrance. "Do 
not," said he, " accustom yourself to consider 
debt only as an inconvenience ; you will find it 
a calamity. Poverty takes away so many 
means of doing good, and produces so much 
inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, 
that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. 

.... Let it be your first care, then, not to 
be in any man's debt. Resolve not to be poor ; 
whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a 
great enemy to human happiness ; it certainly 
destroys liberty, and makes some virtues im- 
practicable and others extremely difficult. 
Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but of 
beneficence. No man can help others that 
wants help himself; we must have enough 
before we have to spare." 



222 How to Get on in the World. 

It is the bounden duty of every man to look 
his affairs in the face, and to keep an account 
of his incomings and outgoings in money 
matters. The exercise of a little simple arith- 
metic in this way will be found of great value. 
Prudence requires that we shall pitch our scale 
of living a degree below our means, rather than 
up to them. But this can only be done by 
carrying out faithfully a plan of living by which 
both ends may be made to meet. John Locke 
strongly advised this course : " Nothing," said 
he, " is likelier to keep a man within compass 
than having constantly before his eyes the state 
of his affairs in a regular course of account." 
The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate 
detailed account of all the moneys received 
and expended by him. " I make a point," 
said he to Mr. Gleig, " of paying my own bills, 
and I advise every one to do the same ; formerly 
I used to trust a confidential servant to pay 
them, but I was cured of that folly by receiving 
one morning, to my great surprise, duns of a 
year or two's standing. The fellow had specu- 
lated with my money, and left my bills unpaid." 
Talking of debt, his remark was, " It makes a 
slave of a man. I have often known what it 
was to be in want of money, but I never got 
into debt." Washington was as particular as 
Wellington was, in matters of business detail ; 
and it is a remarkable fact, that he did not dis- 
dain to scrutinize the smallest outgoings of 
his household — determined as he was to live 
honestly within his means — even when holding 



Put Money in Thy Purse Honestly, 223 

the high office of President of the United 
States. 

There is a dreadful ambition abroad for being 
"genteel." We keep up appearances, too often 
at the expense of honesty ; and though we may 
not be rich yet we must seem to be so. We 
must be " respectable/' though only in th/ 
meanest sense — in mere vulgar outward sho¥ 
AVe have not the courage to go patiently o^ 
ward in the condition of life in which it ha& 
pleased God to call us ; but must needs live in 
some fashionable state to which we ridiculously 
please to call ourselves, and to gratify the van- 
ity of that unsubstantial genteel world of which 
we form a part. There is a constant struggle 
and pressure for front streets in the social am- 
phitheatre ; in the midst of which all noble 
self-denying resolve is trodden down, and many 
fine natures are inevitably crushed to death. 
"What waste, what misery, what bankruptcy 
come from all this ambition to dazzle others 
with the glare of apparent worldly success, we 
need not describe. 

The young man, as he passes through life, 
advances through a long line of tempters ranged 
on either side of him ; and the inevitable effect 
of yielding is degradation in a greater or a less 
degree. Contact with them tends insensibly 
to draw away from him some portion of the 
divine electric element with which his nature 
is charged ; and his only mode of resisting them 
is to utter and act out his "No" manfully 
and resolutely. He must decide at once, not 



224 How to Get on in the World. 

waiting to deliberate and balance reasons ; for 
the youth, like " the woman who deliberates, is 
lost." Many deliberate, without deciding ; but 
"not to resolve, is to resolve." A perfect 
knowledge of man is in the prayer, " Lead us 
not into temptation/' But temptation will 
come to try the young man's strength; and 
once yielded to, the power to resist grows weaker 
and weaker. Yield once, and an element of 
virtue has gone. Resist manfully, and the first 
decision will give strength for life ; repeated it 
will become a habit. It is in the outworks of 
the habits formed in early life that the real 
strength of the defence must lie ; for it has been 
wisely ordained that the machinery of moral 
existence should be carried on principally 
through the medium of the habits, so as to save 
the wear and tear of the great principles within. 
It is good habits which insinuate themselves 
into the thousand inconsiderable acts of life, that 
really constitute by far the greater part of 
man's moral conduct. 

Many popular books have been written for 
the purpose of communicating to the public the 
grand secret of making money. But there is no 
secret whatever about it, as the proverbs of 
every nation abundantly testify. " Take care 
of the pennies and the pounds will take care of 
themselves." " Diligence is the mother of good 
luck." " No pains, no gains." " No sweat, no 
sweet." " Work and thou shalt have." " The 
world is his who has patience and industry." 
" Better go to bed supperless than rise in debt." 



Put Money in Thy Purse Honestly. 225 

Such are specimens of the proverbial philosophy, 
embodying the hoarded experience of many 
generations, as to the best means of thriving in 
the world. They were current in people's 
mouths long before books were invented ; and 
like other popular proverbs they were the first 
codes of popular morals. Moreover, they have 
stood the test of time, and the experience of 
every day still bears witness to their accuracy, 
force, and soundness. The Proverbs of Solomon 
are full of wisdom as to the force of industry, 
and the use and abuse of money : " He that is 
slothful in work is brother to him that is a great 
waster." " Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; con- 
sider her ways, and be wise." Poverty, says 
the preacher, shall come upon the idler, " as 
one that traveleth, and want as an armed 
man ;" but of the industrious and upright, " the 
hand of the diligent maketh rich." "The 
drunkard and the glutton shall come to pov- 
erty ; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with 
rags." " Seest thou a man diligent in his busi- 
ness ? he shall stand before kings." But above 
all, " It is better to get wisdom than gold ; for 
wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things 
that may be desired are not to be compared to it." 
Simple industry and thrift will go far toward 
making any person of ordinary working faculty 
comparatively independent in his means. Even 
a working man may be so, provided he will 
carefully husband his resources, and watch the 
little outlets of useless expenditure. A penny 
is a very small matter, yet the comfort of 



226 How to Get o?i in the World. 

thousands of families depends upon the proper 
spending and saving of pennies. If a man 
allows the little pennies, the results of his hard 
work, to slip out of his fingers — some to the 
beer-shop, some this way and some that — he will 
find that his life is little raised above one of 
mere animal drudgery. On the other hand, if 
}ie take care of the pennies — putting some 
weekly into a benefit society or an insurance 
fund, others into a savings' bank, and confiding 
the rest to his wife to be carefully laid out, with 
a view to the comfortable maintenance and edu- 
cation of his family — he will soon find that this 
attention to small matters will abundantly repay 
him, in increasing means, growing comfort at 
home, and a mind comparatively free from fears 
as to the future. And if a working man have 
high ambition and possess richness in spirit — a 
kind of wealth which far transcends all mere 
worldly possessions — he may not only help him- 
self, but be a profitable helper of others in his 
path through life. 

While credit is the soul of trade, improperly 
used it is the death of business. No man should 
run into debt for a luxury, and every prudent 
man will have money in his purse for life's 
necessities. Remember, the man who is in debt 
without seeing his way out is a slave. Speak- 
ing of this Jacob Abbott says : 

" There is, perhaps, nothing which so grinds 
the human soul, and produces such an insup- 
portable burden of wretchedness and despond- 
ency, as pecuniary pressure. Nothing more 



Put Money in Thy Ptirse Honestly. 227 

frequently drives men to suicide ; and there is, 
perhaps, no danger to which men in an active 
and enterprising community are more exposed. 
Almost all are eagerly reaching forward to a 
station in life a little above what they can w T ell 
afford, or struggling to do a business a little 
more extensive than they have capital or steady 
credit for ; and thus they keep, all through life, 
just above their means — and just above, no 
matter by how small an excess, is inevitable 
misery. 

" Be sure, then, if your aim is happiness, to 
bring down, at all hazards, your style of living, 
and your responsibilities of business, to such a 
point that you shall easily be able to reach it. 
Do this, I say, at all hazards. If you cannot 
have money enough for your purpose in a house 
with two rooms, take a house with one. It is 
your only chance for happiness. For there is 
such a thing as happiness in a single room, with 
plain furniture and simple fare ; but there is no 
such thing as happiness with responsibilites 
which cannot be met, and debts increasing 
without any prospect of their discharge.' ' 

" After I had earned my first thousand dol- 
lars by the hardest kind of work," said Com- 
modore Vanderbilt, " I felt richer and happier 
than when I had my first million. I was out 
of debt, every dollar was honestly mine, and I 
saw my way to success." 



CHAPER XXII. 

A SOUND MIND IN A SOUND BODY. 

Gibbons, the historian, says : " Every person 
has two educations — one which he receives 
from others, and one, the most important, which 
he gives to himself." 

" The best part of every man's education," 
said Sir Walter Scott, " is that which he gives 
to himself." The late Sir Benjamin Brodie de- 
lighted to remember this saying, and he used to 
congratulate himself on the fact that profes- 
sionally he was self-taught. But this is neces- 
sarily the case with all men who have acquired 
distinction in letters, science, or art. The edu- 
cation received at school or college is but a be- 
ginning, and is valuable mainly inasmuch as it 
trains the mind and habituates it to continuous 
application and study. That which is put into 
us by others is always far less ours than that 
which we acquire by our own diligent and per- 
severing effort. Knowledge conquered by labor 
becomes a possession — a property entirely our 
own. A greater vividness and permanency of 
impression is secured ; and facts thus acquired 
become registered in the mind in a way that 
mere imparted information can never effect. 
This kind of self-culture also calls forth power 
and cultivates strength. The solution of one 
problem helps the mastery of another ; and thus 
knowledge is carried into faculty. Our own 
228 



A Sound Mind in a Soimd Body. 229 

active effort is the essential thing ; and no facil- 
ities, no books, no teachers, no amount of les- 
sons learnt by rote, will enable us to dispense 
with it. 

The best teachers have been the readiest to- 
recognize the importance of self-culture, and of 
stimulating the student to acquire knowledge 
by the active exercise of his own faculties. They 
have relied more upon training than upon tell- 
ing, and sought to make their pupils themselves 
active parties to the work in which they were 
engaged ; thus making teaching something far 
higher than the mere passive reception of the 
scraps and details of knowledge. This was the 
spirit in which the great Dr. Arnold worked ; 
he strove to teach his pupils to rely upon them- 
selves, and develop their powers by their own 
active efforts, himself merely guiding, directing, 
stimulating, and encouraging them. " I would 
far rather," he said, " send a boy to Van Die- 
men's Land, where he must work for his bread, 
than send him to Oxford to live in luxury, 
without any desire in his mind to avail himself 
of his advantages.'' " If there be one thing on 
earth," he observed on another occasion, " which 
is truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom 
blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when 
they have been honestly, truly, and zealously 
cultivated." Speaking of a pupil of this char- 
acter, he said, " I would stand to that man hat 
in hand." Once at Laleham, when teaching a 
rather dull boy, Arnold spoke somewhat sharply 
to him, on which the pupil looked up in his face 



230 How to Get on in the World. 

and said, "Why do you speak angrily, sir? 
indeed, I am doing the best I can." Years 
afterward, Arnold used to tell the story to his 
children, and added, "I never felt so much 
ashamed in my life — that look and that speech 
I have never forgotten." 

From the numerous instances already cited 
of men of humble station who have risen to 
distinction in science and literature, it will be 
obvious that labor is by no means incompatible 
with the highest intellectual culture. Work in 
moderation is healthy as well as agreeable to 
the human constitution. Work educates the 
body, as study educates the mind ; and that is 
the best state of society in which there is some 
work for every man's leisure, and some leisure 
for every man's work. Even the leisure classes 
are in a measure compelled to work, sometimes 
as a relief from ennui, but in most cases to 
gratify an instinct which they cannot resist. 
Some go fox-hunting in the English counties, 
others grouse shooting on the Scotch hills, while 
many wander away every summer to climb 
mountains in Switzerland. Hence the boating, 
running, cricketing, and athletic sports of the 
public schools in which our young men at the 
same time so healthfully cultivate their strength 
both of mind and body. It is said that the 
Duke of Wellington, when once looking on at 
the boys engaged in their sports in the play- 
ground at Eton, where he had spent many of 
his own younger days, made the remark, "It 
was there that the battle of Waterloo was won ! " 



A Sound Mind in a Sound Body. 231 

Daniel Malthus urged his son when at college 
to be most diligent in the cultivation of knowl- 
edge, but he also enjoined him to pursue manly- 
sports as the best means of keeping up the full 
working power of his mind, as well as of enjoy- 
ing the pleasures of intellect. " Every kind of 
knowledge/' said he, " every acquaintance with 
nature and art, w T ill amuse and strengthen your 
mind, and I am perfectly pleased that cricket 
should do the same by your arms and legs ; I 
love to see you excel in exercises of the body, 
and I think myself that the better half, and so 
much the most agreeable part, of the pleasures 
of the mind is best enjoyed w T hile one is upon 
one's legs. ,, But a still more important use of 
active employment is that referred to by the 
great divine, Jeremy Taylor. " Avoid idle- 
ness,' ' he says, " and fill up all the spaces of thy 
time with severe and useful employment ; for 
lust easily creeps in at those emptinesses where 
the soul is unemployed and the body is at ease ; 
for no easy, healthful, idle person was ever 
chaste, if he could be tempted ; but of all em- 
ployments bodily labor is the most useful, and of 
the greatest benefit for driving away the devil." 

Practical success in life depends more upon 
physical health than is generally imagined. 
Hodson, of Hodson's Horse, writing home to a 
friend in England, said, " I believe if I get on 
well in India, it will be owing, physically 
speaking, to a sound digestion." The capacity 
for continuous working in any calling must 
necessarily depend in a great measure upon this ; 



22,2 How to Get on in the World. 

and hence the necessity for attending to health, 
even as a means of intellectual labor. It is 
perhaps to the neglect of physical exercise that 
we find amongst students so frequent a tendency 
toward discontent, unhappiness, inaction, and 
reverie — displaying itself in contempt for real 
life and disgust at the beaten tracks of men — a 
tendency which in England has been called 
Byronism, and in Germany Wertherism. Dr. 
Channing noted the same growth in our land, 
which led him to make the remark, that " too 
many of our young men grow up in a school of 
despair." The only remedy for this green-sick- 
ness in youth is physical exercise — action, work 
and bodily occupation. 

The use of early labor in self-imposed me- 
chanical employments may be illustrated by the 
boyhood of Sir Isaac Newton. Though com- 
paratively a dull scholar, he was very assiduous 
in the use of his saw, hammer, and hatchet — 
" knocking and hammering in his lodging room " 
— making models of windmills, carriages, and 
machines of all sorts ; and as he grew older, he 
took delight in making little tables and cup- 
boards for his friends. Smeaton, Watt, and 
Stephenson were equally handy with tools when 
mere boys ; and but for such kind of self-cul- 
ture in their youth it is doubtful whether they 
would have accomplished so much in their man- 
hood. Such was also the early training of the 
great inventors and mechanics described in the 
preceding pages, whose contrivance and intelli- 
gence were practically trained by the constant 



A Sound Mind in a Sound Body, 233 

use of their hands in early life. Even where 
men belonging to the manual labor class have 
risen above it, and become more purely intel- 
lectual laborers, they have found the advantages 
of their early training in their later pursuits. 
Elihu Burritt says he found hard labor necesscuy 
to enable him to study with effect ; and more than 
once he gave up school teaching and study, and 
taking to his leather apron again, went back to 
his blacksmith's forge and anvil for the health 
of his body and mind's sake. 

The training of young men in the use of tools 
would at the same time that it educated them 
in " common things," teach them the use of 
their hands and arms, familiarize them with 
healthy work, exercise their faculties upon 
things tangible and actual, give them some 
practical acquaintance with mechanics, impart 
to them the ability of being useful, and implant 
in them the habit of persevering physical effort. 
This is an advantage which the working classes, 
strictly so called, certainly possess over the 
leisure classes — that they are in early life under 
the necessity of applying themselves laboriously 
to some mechanical pursuit or other — thus ac- 
quiring manual dexterity, and the use of their 
physical powers. The chief disadvantage at- 
tached to the calling of the laborious classes is, 
not that they are employed in physical work, 
but that they are too exclusively so employed, 
often to the neglect of their moral and intellec- 
tual faculties. While the youths of the leisure 
classes, having been taught to associate labor 



234 How to Get on in the World. 

with servility, have shunned it, and been al- 
lowed to grow up practically ignorant, the 
poorer classes, confining themselves within the 
circle of their laborious callings, have been al- 
lowed to grow up, in a large proportion of cases, 
absolutely illiterate. It seems, possible, how- 
ever, to avoid both these evils by combining 
ihysical training or physical work with inte 1 
ectual culture ; and there are various sign** 
ibroad which seem to mark the gradual adop- 
tion of this healthier system of education. 

The success of even professional men depends 
in no slight degree on their physical health ; 
and a public writer has gone so far as to say 
that " the greatness of our great men is quite 
as much a bodily affair as a mental one." A 
healthy breathing apparatus is as indispensable 
to the successful lawyer or politician as a well- 
cultured intellect. The thorough aeration of 
his blood by free exposure to a large breathing 
surface in the lungs is necessary to maintain that 
vital power on which the vigorous working of the 
brain in so large a measure depends. The law- 
yer has to climb the heights of his profession 
through close and heated courts, and the politi- 
cal leader has to bear the fatigue and excite- 
ment of long and anxious debates in a crowded 
House. Hence the lawyer in full practice and 
the parliamentary leader in full work are called 
upon to display powers of physical endurance 
and activity even more extraordinary than 
those of the intellect — such powers as have 
been exhibited in so remarkable a degree by 



A Sound Mind in a Sound Body. 235 

Brougham, Lyndhurst and Campbell ; by 
Peel, Graham and Palmerston — all full-chested 
men. 

Though Sir Walter Scott, when at Edinburgh 
College, went by the name of " The Greek 
Blockhead, " he was, notwithstanding his lame- 
ness, a remarkably healthy youth ; he could 
spear a salmon with the best fisher on the 
Tweed, and ride a wild horse with any hunter 
in Yarrow. When devoting himself in after 
life to literary pursuits, Sir Walter never lost 
his taste for field sports, but while writing 
" Waverley " in the morning he would in the 
afternoon course hares. Professor Wilson was a 
very athlete, as great at throwing the hammer 
as in his flights of eloquence and poetry ; and 
Burns, when a youth, was remarkable chiefly 
for his leaping, putting, and wrestling. Some 
of the greatest divines were distinguished in 
their youth for their physical energies. Isaac 
Barrow, when at the Charterhouse School, was 
notorious for his pugilistic encounters, in which 
he got many a bloody nose ; Andrew Fuller, 
when working as a farmer's lad at Soham, was 
chiefly famous for his skill in boxing ; and 
Adam Clarke, when a boy, was only remark- 
able for the strength displayed by him in " roll- 
ing large stones about" — the secret, possibly, 
of some of the power which he subsequently 
displayed in rolling forth large thoughts in his 
manhood. 

While it is necessary, then, in the first place 
to secure this solid foundation of physical 



236 How to Get on in the World. 

health, it must also be observed that the culti- 
vation of the habit of mental application is 
quite indispensable for the education of the stu- 
dent. The maxim that "labor conquers all 
things " holds especially true in the case of the 
conquest of knowledge. The road into learn- 
ing is alike free to all who will give the labor 
and the study requisite to gather it ; nor are 
there any difficulties so great that the student 
of resolute purpose may not surmount and 
overcome them. It was one of the character- 
istic expressions of Chatterton, that God had 
sent his creatures into the world w r ith arms long 
-enough to reach anything if they chose to be 
at the trouble. In study, as in business, energy 
is the great thing. There must be the " fervet 
opus ; " we must not only strike the iron while 
it is hot, but strike it till it is made hot. It is 
astonishing how much may be accomplished in 
self-culture by the energetic and the persever- 
ing, who are careful to avail themselves of op- 
portunities, and use up the fragments of spare 
time which the idle permit to run to waste. 
Thus Ferguson learnt astronomy from the 
heavens while wrapped in a sheepskin on the 
highland hills. Thus Stone learnt mathematics 
while working as a journeyman gardener ; thus 
Drew studied the highest philosophy in the in- 
tervals of cobbling shoes ; and thus Miller 
taught himself geology while working as a day 
laborer in a quarry. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, as we have already ob- 
served, was so earnest a believer in the force of 



A Soiuid Mind in a Sound Body. 237 

industry that he held that all men might 
achieve excellence if they would but exercise 
the power of assiduous and patient working. 
He held that drudgery lay on the road, to 
genius, and that there was no limit to the pro- 
ficiency of an artist except the limit of his own 
painstaking. He would not believe in what is 
called inspiration, but only in study and labor. 
" Excellence/ ' he said, " is never granted to 
man but as the reward of labor. If you have 
great talents, industry will improve them ; if 
you have but moderate abilities, industry will 
supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to 
well-directed labor ; nothing is to be obtained 
without it." Sir Fowell Buxton was an 
equal believer in the power of study ; and 
he entertained the modest idea that he could do 
as well as other men if he devoted to the pur- 
suit double the time and labor that they did. 
He placed his great confidence in ordinary 
means and extraordinary application. 

" I have known several men in my life," says 
Dr. Ross, " who may be recognized in days to 
come as men of genius, and they were all plod- 
ders, hard-working intent men. Genius is 
known by its works ; genius without works is a 
blind faith, a dumb oracle. But meritorious 
works are the result of time and labor, and 
cannot be accomplished by intention or by a 
wish. . . . Every great work is the result 
of vast preparatory training. Facility comes 
by labor. Nothing seems easy, not even walk- 
ing, that was not difficult at first. The orator 



238 How to Get on in the World \ 

whose eye flashes instantaneous fire, and whose 
lips pour out a flood of noble thoughts, startling 
by their unexpectedness and elevating by their 
wisdom and truth, has learned his secret by 
patient repetition, and after many bitter disap- 
pointments." 

Thoroughness and accuracy are two principal 
points to be aimed at in study. Francis Horner, 
in laying down rules for the cultivation of his 
mind, placed great stress upon the habit of con- 
tinuous application to one subject for the sake 
of mastering it thoroughly ; he confined him- 
self with this object to only a few books, and 
resisted with the greatest firmness " every ap- 
proach to a habit of desultory reading." The 
value of knowledge to any man consists, not in 
its quantity, but mainly in the good uses to 
which he can apply it. Hence a little knowl- 
edge of an exact and perfect character is 
always found more valuable for practical 
purposes than any extent of superficial learn- 
ing. 

It is not the quantity of study that one gets 
through, or the amount of reading, that makes 
a wise man ; but the appositeness of the study 
to the purpose for which it is pursued ; the 
concentration of the mind, for the time being, 
on the subject under consideration ; and the 
habitual discipline by which the whole system 
of mental application is regulated. Abernethy 
was even of opinion that there was a point of 
saturation in his own mind, and that if he took 
into it something more than it could hold, it 



A Sound Mind in a Sound Body. 239 

only had the effect of pushing something else 
out. Speaking of the study of medicine, he 
said : " If a man has a clear idea of what he 
desires to do, he will seldom fail in selecting the 
proper means of accomplishing it." 

The most profitable study is that which is 
conducted with a definite aim and object. By 
thoroughly mastering any given branch of 
knowledge we render it more available for use 
at any moment. Hence it is not enough merely 
to have books, or to know where to read for 
information as we want it. Practical wisdom, 
for the purposes of life, must be carried about 
with us, and be ready for use at call. It is not 
sufficient that we have a fund laid up at home, 
but not a farthing in the pocket : we must carry 
about with us a store of the current coin of 
knowledge ready for exchange on all occasions, 
else we are comparatively helpless when the 
opportunity for using it occurs. 

Decision and promptitude are as requisite in 
self-culture as in business. The growth of these 
qualities may be encouraged by accustoming 
young people to rely upon their own resources, 
leaving them to enjoy as much freedom of action 
in early life as is practicable. Too much guid- 
ance and restraint hinder the formation of 
habits of self-he] p. They are like bladders tied 
under the arms of one who has not taught him- 
self tc swim. Want of confidence is perhaps a 
greater obstacle to improvement than is gen- 
erally imagined. It has been said that half the 
failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse 



240 How to Get on in Jhe World. 

while he is leaping. Dr. Johnson was accus- 
tomed to attribute his success to confidence in 
his own powers. True modesty is quite com- 
patible with a true estimate of one's own merits, 
and does not demand the abnegation of all 
merit. Though there are those who deceive 
themselves by putting a false figure before their 
ciphers, the want of confidence, the want of 
faith in one's self, and consequently the want 
of promptitude in action, is a defect of char- 
acter which is found to stand very much in the 
way of individual progress ; and the reason why 
so little is done, is generally because so little is 
attempted. 

There is usually no want of desire on the 
part of most persons to arrive at the results of 
self-culture, but there is a great aversion to pay 
the inevitable price for it, of hard work. Dr. 
Johnson held that "impatience of study was 
the mental disease of the present generation ; " 
and the remark is still applicable. We may 
not believe that there is a royal road to learn- 
ing, but we seem to believe very firmly in the 
" popular " one. In education, we invent labor- 
saving processes, seek short cuts to science, learn 
French and Latin " in twelve lessons," or "with- 
out a master." We resemble the lady of fashion, 
who engaged a master to teach her on condition 
that he did not plague her with verbs and par- 
ticiples. We get our smattering of science in 
the same way ; we learn chemistry by listening 
to a short course of lectures enlivened by experi- 
ments, and when we have inhaled laughing-gas, 



A Sound Mind in a Sound Body. 241 

seen green water turned to red, and phosphorus 
burnt in oxygen, we have got our smattering, 
of which the most that can be said is, that 
though it may be better than nothing, it is yet 
good for nothing. Thus we often imagine we 
are being educated while we are only being 
amused. 

The facility with which young people are thus 
induced to acquire knowledge, without study 
and labor, is not education. It occupies but 
does not enrich the mind. It imparts a stimulus 
for the time, and produces a sort of intellectual 
keenness and cleverness ; but, without an im- 
planted purpose and a higher object than mere 
pleasure, it will bring with it no solid advantage. 
In such cases knowledge produces but a passing 
impression ; a sensation, but no more ; it is, in 
fact, the merest epicurism of intelligence — 
sensuous, but certainly not intellectual. Thus 
the best qualities of many minds, those which 
are evoked by vigorous effort and independent 
action, sleep a deep sleep, and are often never 
called to life, except by the rough awakening 
of sudden calamity or suffering, which, in such 
cases comes as a blessing, if it serves to rouse up 
a courageous spirit that, but for it, would have 
slept on. 

Accustomed to acquire information under the 
guise of amusement, young people will soon 
reject that which is presented to them under the 
aspect of study and labor. Learning their 
knowledge and science in sport, they will be too 
apt to make sport of both ; while the habit of 



242 How to Get on in the World. 

intellectual dissipation, thus engendered, can- 
not fail, in course of time, to produce a thor- 
oughly emasculating effect both upon their 
mind and character. " Multifarious reading, " 
said Robertson, of Brighton, "weakens the 
mind like smoking, and is an excuse for its 
lying dormant. It is the idlest of all idlenesses, 
and leaves more of impotency than any other." 
The evil is a growing one, and operates in 
various ways. Its least mischief is shallowness ; 
its greatest, the aversion to steady labor which 
it induces, and the low and feeble tone of mind 
which it encourages. If we would be really 
wise, we must diligently apply ourselves, and 
confront the same continuous application which 
our forefathers did ; for labor is still, and ever 
will be, the inevitable price set upon everything 
which is valuable. We must be satisfied to 
work with a purpose, and wait the results with 
patience. All progress, of the best kind, is 
slow ; but to him w T ho works faithfully and zeal- 
ously the reward will, doubtless, be vouchsafed 
in good time. The spirit of industry, embodied 
in a man's daily life, will gradually lead him to 
exercise his powers on objects outside himself, 
of greater dignity and more extended useful- 
ness. And still we must labor on ; for the work 
of self-culture is never finished. " To be em- 
ployed," said the poet Gray, " is to be happy." 
"It is better to wear out than rust out," said 
Bishop Cumberland. " Have we not all eter- 
nity to rest in ? " exclaimed Arnauld. " Repos 
ailleurs" (rest for others) was the motto of 



A Sound Mind i?i a Sound Body. 243 

Marnix de St. Aldegonde, the energetic and 
ever-working friend of William the Silent. 

It is the use we make of the powers intrusted 
to us w T hich constitutes our only just claims to 
respect. He who employs his one talent aright 
is as much to be honored as he to whom ten 
talents have been given. There is really no 
more personal merit attaching to the possession 
of superior intellectual powers than there is in 
the succession to a large estate. How are those 
powers used — how is that estate employed ? 
The mind may accumulate large stores of knowl- 
edge without any useful purpose ; but the 
knowledge must be allied to goodness and wis- 
dom, and embodied in upright character, else it 
is naught. Pestalozzi even held intellectual 
training by itself to be pernicious ; insisting 
that the roots of all knowledge must strike and 
feed in the soil of the rightly-governed will. 
The acquisition of knowledge may, it is true, 
protect a man against the meaner felonies of 
life ; but not in any degree against its selfish 
vices, unless fortified by sound principles and 
habits. Hence do we find in daily life so many 
instances of men who are well-informed in 
intellect, but utterly deformed in character ; 
filled with the learning of the schools, yet 
possessing little practical wisdom, and offering 
examples for warning rather than imitation. 
An often-quoted expression at this day is that 
" Knowledge is pow T er ; " but so, also, are fanati- 
cism, despotism, and ambition. Knowledge of 
itself, unless wisely directed might merely make 



244 How to Get on in the World. 

bad men more dangerous, and the society in 
which it was regarded as the highest good, as 
little better than pandemonium. 

It is not then how much a man may know, 
that is of importance, but the end and purpose 
for which he knows it. The object of knowledge 
should be to mature wisdom and improve charac- 
ter, to render us better, happier, and more use- 
ful ; more benevolent, more energetic, and more 
efficient in the pursuit of every high purpose in 
life. " When people once fall into the habit of 
admiring and encouraging ability as such, with- 
out reference to moral character — and religious 
and political opinions are the concrete form of 
moral character — they are on the highway to 
all sorts of degradation." We must ourselves 
be and do, and not rest satisfied merely with 
reading and meditating over what other men 
have been and done. Our best light must be 
made life, and our best thought action. At 
least we ought to be able to say, as Richter did, 
" I have made as much out of myself as could 
be made of the stuff, and no man should require 
more ;" for it is every man's duty to discipline 
and guide himself, with God's help, according 
to his responsibilities and the faculties with 
which he has been endowed: 

Self-discipline and self-control are the begin- 
nings of practical wisdom ; and these must have 
their root in self-respect. Hope springs from 
it — hope, which is the companion of power, and 
the mother of success ; for whoso hopes strongly 
has within him the gift of miracles. The 



A Sound Mind i?i a Soimd Body. 245 

humblest may say, u To respect myself, to de- 
velop myself — this is my true duty in life. An 
integral and responsible part of the great system 
of society, I owe it to society and to its Author 
not to degrade or destroy either my body, mind, 
or instincts. On the contrary, I am bound to* 
the best 0/ my power to give to those parts of 
nrj constitution the highest degree of perfection 
possible. I am not only to suppress the evil,, 
but to evoke the good elements in my nature. 
And as I respect myself, so am I equally bound 
to respect others, as they on their part are bound 
to respect me." Hence mutual respect, justice,, 
and order, of which law becomes the written, 
record and guarantee. 

" Self-respect is the noblest garment with 
which a man may clothe himself — the most 
elevating feeling with which the mind can be 
inspired. One of Pythagoras' wisest maxims, 
in his " Golden Verses," is that with which he 
enjoins the pupil to " reverence himself." Borne 
up by this high idea, he will not defile his body 
by sensuality, nor his mind by servile thoughts. 
This sentiment, carried into daily life, will be 
found at the root of all the virtues — cleanliness^ 
sobriety, chastity, morality, and religion. " The 
pious and just honoring of ourselves," said Mil- 
ton, " may be thought the radical moisture and 
fountain-head from whence every laudable and 
worthy enterprise issues forth." To think 
meanly of one's self, is to sink in one's own es- 
timation as well as in the estimation of others. 
And as the thoughts are, so will the acts be. 



246 How to Get on in the World, 

Man cannot aspire if he looks down ; if he will 
rise, he must look up. The very humblest may 
be sustained by the proper indulgence of this 
feeling. Poverty itself may be lifted and 
lighted up by self-respect ; and it is truly a 
noble sight to see a poor man hold himself up- 
right amidst his temptations, and refuse to de- 
mean himself by low actions. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

LABOR CREATES THE ONLY TRUE NOBILITY. 

As Americans Ave are justly proud that we 
have no hereditary titles, but each man is meas- 
ured by his own personal worth. 

While believing firmly in the propriety of 
this order of things, yet we would not have you 
imagine that we underestimate the value of a 
respectable lineage, but it is better to be the 
originator of a great family than to be the de- 
generate descendant of one. 

With but few exceptions those Americans 
whose lives are very properly held up as an ex- 
ample for the imitation of our youth, are men 
who have had to work their own way from the 
humblest walks in life, to the highest in the gift 
of the nation. 

This is true of Franklin, the statesman and 
philosopher, as it is of Lincoln, the patriot and 
martyr, and the splendid list of names that adorn 
the pages of our intervening history. 

Smiles in his " Self-Help " shows how in Eng- 
land, a land where ancestry counts for so much, 
the descendants of the greatest men, even of 
kings, have been found in the humblest of call- 
ings. 

The blood of all men flows from equally re- 
mote sources ; and though some are unable to 
trace their line directly beyond their grand- 
fathers, all are nevertheless justified in placing 
247 



248 How to Get on in the World. 

at the head of their pedigree the great progeni- 
tors of the race, as Lord Chesterfield did when 
he wrote, " Adam de Stanhope — Eve de Stan- 
hope" No class is ever long stationary. The 
mighty fall, and the humble are exalted. New 
families take the place of the old, who dis- 
appear among the ranks of the common people. 
Burke's "Vicissitudes of Families " strikingly 
exhibits this rise and fall of families, and shows 
that the misfortunes which overtake the rich 
and noble are greater in proportion than those 
which overwhelm the poor. This author points 
out that of the twenty-five barons selected to 
enforce the observance of Magna Charta, there 
is not now in the House of Peers a single male 
descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined 
many of the old nobility and dispersed their 
families. Yet their descendants in many cases 
survive, and are to be found among the ranks 
of the people. Fuller wrote in his " Worthies/' 
that " some who justly hold the surnames of 
Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets, are hid 
in the heap of common men." Thus Burke 
shows that two of the lineal descendants of the 
Earl of Kent, sixth son of Edward I., were 
discovered in a butcher and a toll-gatherer; 
that the great-grandson of Margaret Plantage- 
net, daughter of the Duke of Clarence, sank 
to the condition of a cobbler at Newport, in 
Shropshire ; and that among the lineal de- 
scendants of the Duke of Gloucester, son of 
Edward III., was the late sexton of St. 
George's Church, London. IV is understood 



Labor the True Nobility, 249 

that the lineal descendant of Simon de Mont- 
fort, England's premier baron, is a saddler in 
Tooley street. One of the descendants of the 
" Proud Percys," a claimant of the title of 
Duke of Northumberland, was a Dublin trunk- 
maker ; and not many years since one of the 
claimants for the title of Earl of Perth pre- 
sented himself in the person of a laborer in a 
Northumberland coal-pit. Hugh Miller, when 
working as a stone-mason near Edinburgh, was 
served by a hodman, who w r as one of the 
numerous claimants for the earldom of Crau- 
ford — all that was wanted to establish his 
claim being a missing marriage certificate ; 
and while the work was going on, the cry re- 
sounded from the walls many times in the day, 
of " John, Yearl Crauford, bring us anither 
hod o' lime." One of Oliver Cromwell's 
great-grandsons was a grocer in London, and 
others of his descendants died in great pov- 
erty. Many barons of proud names and titles 
have perished, like the sloth, upon their fam- 
ily tree, after eating up all the leaves ; while 
others have been overtaken by adversities 
which they have been unable to retrieve, and 
have sunk at last into poverty and obscurity. 
Such are the mutabilities of rank and fortune. 

The great bulk of the English peerage is 
comparatively modern, so far as the titles go ; 
but it is not the less noble that it has been re- 
cruited to so large an extent from the ranks 
of honorable industry. In olden times, the 
wealth and commerce of London, conducted &s 



250 How to Get on in the World. 

it was by energetic and enterprising men, was 
a prolific source of peerages. Thus, the earl- 
dom of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas 
Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant ; that of 
Essex by William Capel, the draper ; and that 
of Craven by William Craven, the merchant 
tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick is not 
descended from the "King-maker," but from 
William Greville, the woolstapler ; whilst the 
modern dukes of Northumberland find their 
head, not in the Percys, but in Hugh Smith- 
son, a respectable London apothecary. The 
founders of the families of Dartmouth, Radnor, 
Ducie, and Pomfret, were respectively a skin- 
ner, a silk manufacturer, a merchant tailor, 
and a Calais merchant ; whilst the founders of 
the peerages of Tankerville, Dormer, and Cov- 
entry, were mercers. The ancestors of Earl 
Romney, and Lord Dudley and Ward, were 
goldsmiths and jewelers ; and Lord Dacres was 
a banker in the reign of Charles I., as Lord 
Overstone is in that of Queen Victoria. Ed- 
ward Osborne, the founder of the dukedom of 
Leeds, w T as apprentice to William He wet, a 
rich cloth- worker on London Bridge, whose 
only daughter he courageously rescued from 
drowning, by leaping into the Thames after 
her, and whom he eventually married. 

William Phipps, at one time Colonial Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, and the founder of the 
Normandy family, was the son of a gunsmith 
who emigrated to Maine, where this remarkable 
man was born in 1651. He was one of a family 



Labor the True Nobility. 251 

of not fewer than twenty-six children (of whom 
twenty-one were sons), whose only fortune lay 
in their stout hearts and strong arms. William 
seems to have had a dash of the Danish sea- 
blood in his veins, and he did not take kindly to 
the quiet life of a shepherd in which he spent 
his early years. By nature bold and adven- 
turous, he longed to become a sailor and roam 
through the world. He sought to join some 
ship ; but not being able to find one, he appren- 
ticed himself to a ship-builder, with whom he 
thoroughly learnt his trade, acquiring the arts 
of reading and writing during his leisure hours. 
Having completed his apprenticeship and re- 
moved to Boston, he wooed and married a 
widow of some means, after which he set up a 
little ship-building yard of his own, built a 
ship, and putting to sea in her, he engaged in 
the lumber trade, which he carried on in a 
plodding and laborious way for the space of 
about ten years. 

It happened that one day, while passing 
through the crooked streets of old Boston, he 
overheard some sailors talking to each other of 
a wreck which had just taken place off the Ba- 
hamas ; that of a Spanish ship, supposed to have 
much money on board. His adventurous spirit 
was at once kindled, and getting together a 
likely crew without loss of time, he set sail for 
the Bahamas. The wreck being well in shore, 
he easily found it, and succeeded in recovering 
a great deal of its cargo, but very little money ; 
and the result was that he barelv defraved his- 



252 How to Get on in the World, 

expenses. His success had been such, however, 
as to stimulate his enterprising spirit ; and 
when he was told of another and far more richly 
laden vessel which had been wrecked near Port 
<le la Plata more than half a century before, he 
forthwith formed the resolution of raising the 
wreck, or at all events of fishing up the 
treasure. 

Being too poor, however, to undertake such 
an enterprise without powerful help, he set sail 
for England in the hope that he might there 
obtain it. The fame of his success in raising 
the wreck off the Bahamas had already pre- 
ceded him. He applied direct to the Govern- 
ment. By his urgent enthusiasm, he succeeded 
in overcoming the usual inertia of official 
minds ; and Charles II. eventually placed at 
his disposal the "Rose Algier," a ship of 
•eighteen guns and ninety-five men, appointing 
him to the chief command. 

Phipps then set sail to find the Spanish ship 
and fish up the treasure. He reached the coast 
of Hispaniola in safety ; but how to find the 
sunken ship was the great difficulty. The fact 
of the wreck was more than fifty years old ; 
and Phipps had only the traditionary rumors 
of the event to work upon. There was a wide 
coast to explore, and an outspread ocean, with- 
out any trace whatever of the argosy which 
lay somewhere at its bottom. But the man was 
■stout in heart and full of hope. He set his 
seamen to work to drag along the coast, and for 
weeks they went on fishing up seaweed, shingle, 



Labor the True Nobility. 253 

and bits of rock. No occupation could be 
more trying to seamen, and they began to 
grumble one to another, and to whisper that the 
man in command had brought them on a fooPs 
errand. 

At length the murmurers gained head, and 
the men broke into open mutiny. A body of 
them rushed one day on to the quarter-deck, 
and demanded that the voyage should be relin- 
quished. Phipps, however, was not a man to 
be intimidated ; he seized the ringleaders, and 
sent the others back to their duty. It became 
necessary to bring the ship to anchor close to a 
small island for the purpose of repairs ; and, to 
lighten her, the chief part of the stores was 
landed. Discontent still increasing among the 
crew, a new plot was laid among the men on 
shore to seize the ship, throw Phipps overboard, 
and start on a piratical cruise against the Span- 
iards in the South Seas. But it was necessary 
to secure the services of the chief ship-carpen- 
ter, who was consequently made privy to the 
plot. This man proved faithful, and at once 
told the captain of his danger. Summoning 
about him those whom he knew to be loyal, 
Phipps had the ship's guns loaded, which com- 
manded the shore, and ordered the bridge com- 
municating with the vessel to be drawn up. 
When the mutineers made their appearance, 
the captain hailed them, and told the men he 
would fire upon them if they approached the 
stores (still on land), when they drew back ; on 
which Phipps had the stores reshipped under 



254 How to Get on in the World. 

cover of his guns. The mutineers, fearful of 
being left upon the barren island, threw down 
their arms and implored to be permitted to re- 
turn to their duty. The request was granted, 
and suitable precautions were taken against 
further mischief. Phipps, however, took the 
first opportunity of landing the mutinous part 
of the crew, and engaging other men in their 
places ; but, by the time that he could again 
proceed actively with his explorations, he found 
it absolutely necessary to proceed to England for 
the purpose of repairing the ship. He had now, 
however, gained more precise information as to 
the spot where the Spanish treasure-ship had 
sunk ; and, though as yet baffled, he was more 
confident than ever of the eventual success of 
his enterprise. 

Returned to London, Phipps reported the re- 
sult of his voyage to the Admirality, who pro- 
fessed to be pleased with his exertions ; but he 
had been unsuccessful, and they would not en- 
trust him with another king's ship. James II. 
was now on the throne, and the Government 
was in trouble ; so Phipps and his golden pro- 
ject appealed to them in vain. He next tried 
to raise the requisite means by a public sub- 
scription. At first he was laughed at ; but his 
ceaseless importunity at length prevailed, and 
after four years' dinning of his project into the 
ears of the great and influential — during which 
time he lived in poverty — he at length suc- 
ceeded. A company was formed in twenty 
shares, the Duke of Albemarle, son of General 



Labor the True Nobility. 255 

Monk, taking the chief interest in it, and sub- 
scribing the principal part of the necessary 
fund for the prosecution of the enterprise. 

Phipps was successful in this undertaking. 
He started other enterprises and succeeded. 
He was knighted, and as has been stated, 
became the founder of one of England's noble 
families. It should be said, however, that 
beyond his perseverance, he had but few 
qualities to commend him. He was coarse, 
ignorant, and brutal, and had to fly from 
Massachusetts to save his life from an indig- 
nant people. 

But true nobility is not that which is con- 
ferred by the warrant of a monarch. If as 
Pope says, " An honest man's the noblest work 
of God," then the noblest man is the honest 
man, who with his own clear brain and strong 
right arm, wins his way up from the humblest 
walks in life, till by virtue of his manhood, he 
stands the peer of peers, and by Divine right 
the equal of all earth's kings. 

We hear a great deal about an American 
aristocracy, but no matter what the wishes of a 
few people with un-American tastes may be, 
the only aristocracy that can ever find recogni- 
tion here, is that of brains and the success born 
of honest toil. 

Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the rich 
families that are wrongly supposed to constitute 
our aristocracy at this time, were poor less than 
fifty years ago. Many of the rich families of 
fifty years ago are poor to-day ; and so fortune 



256 How to Get on in the World. 

varies and changes in this new land. Our true 
aristocrats are successful men like Peter Cooper, 
who left the world better for having lived in it. 
We count among our aristocrats, patriots like 
Lincoln, and if his descendants emulate his 
noble example, they too will be ennobled by 
their countrymen. We reckon Lowell, Long- 
fellow, Whittier, Holmes, Hawthorne, Elisha 
Howe and George W. Childs among our aristo- 
crats. Andrew Carnegie deserves a place in 
the same list of American peers, as does Thomas 
A. Edison. 

But after all the true title to nobility is 
implied in the words "gentleman " and " lady," 
and with these we need not fear comparison 
with all the world's titled nobles. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN IS SELF-MADE. 

The crown and glory of life is Character. It 
is the noblest possession of a man, constituting 
a rank in itself, and an estate in the general 
good-will ; dignifying every station, and exalt- 
ing every position in society. It exercises a 
greater power than wealth, and secures all the 
honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries 
with it an influence which always tells ; for it 
is the result of proved honor, rectitude and 
consistency — qualities which, perhaps, more 
than any other, command the general confi- 
dence and respect of mankind. 

Character is human nature in its best form. 
It is moral order embodied in the individual. 
Men of character are not only the conscience 
of society, but in every well-governed state 
they are its best motive power ; for it is moral 
qualities in the main w r hich rule the world. 
Even in war, Napoleon said, the moral is to 
the physical as ten to one. The strength, the 
industry, and the civilization of nations — all 
depend upon individual character; and the 
very foundations of civil security rest upon it. 
Laws and institutions are but its outgrowth. 
In the just balance of nature individuals, 
nations and races, will obtain just so much as 
they deserve, and no more, And as effect finds 
its cause, so surely does quality of character 
amongst a people produce its befitting results. 

2?7 



258 How to Get on hi the World. 

Though a man have comparatively little 
culture, slender abilities, and but small wealth, 
yet, if his character be of sterling worth, he 
always commands an influence, whether it be in 
the workshop, the counting-house, the mart, or 
the senate. Canning wisely wrote in 1801, 
" My road must be through Character to 
Power ; I will try no other course ; and 1 am 
sanguine enough to believe that this course, 
though not perhaps the quickest, is the surest." 
You may admire men of intellect ; but some- 
thing more is necessary before you will trust 
them. This was strikingly illustrated in the 
career of Francis Horner — a man of whom 
Sydney Smith said that the Ten Command- 
ments were stamped upon his countenance. 
" The valuable and peculiar light," says Lord 
Cockburn, " in which his history is calculated 
to inspire every right-minded youth, is this : 
He died at the age of thirty-eight; possessed 
of greater public influence than any other 
private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, 
and deplored by all, except the heartless or the 
base. Now let every young man ask — how 
was this attained? By rank? He was the 
son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? 
Neither he, nor any of his relations, ever had a 
superfluous sixpence. By office? He held 
but one, and only for a few years, of no influ- 
ence, and with very little pay. By talents? 
His were not splendid, and he had no genius. 
Cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be 
right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm, 



The Successful Man is Self- Made. 259 

good taste, without any of the oratory that 
either terrifies or seduces. By any fascination 
of manner? His was only correct and agree- 
able. By what, then, was it? Merely by 
sense, industry, good principles, and a good 
heart — qualities which no well-constituted mind 
need ever despair of attaining. It was the force 
of his character that raised him ; and this char- 
acter not impressed upon him by nature, but 
formed, out of no peculiarly fine elements, by 
himself. There were many in the House of Com - 
nions of far greater ability and eloquence, 
But no one surpassed him in the combination 
of an adequate portion of these with moral 
worth. Horner was born to show what mod- 
erate powers, unaided by anything whatever 
except culture and goodness, may achieve, even 
when these powers are displayed amidst the 
competition and jealousy of public life." 

Franklin attributed his success as a public 
man not to his talents or his powers of speaking 
— for these were but moderate — but to his 
known integrity of character. Hence, it was, 
he says, ," that I had so much weight with my 
fellow-citizens. I was but a bad speaker, never 
eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my 
choice of words, hardly correct in language, 
and yet I generally carried my point." Char- 
acter creates confidence in men in high station 
as well as in humble life. It was said of the 
first Emperor Alexander of Russia, that his 
personal character was equivalent to a consti- 
tution. During the wars of the Fronde, 



260 How to Get on in the World. 

Montaigne was the only man amongst the French 
gentry who kept his castle gates unbarred ; and 
it was said of him, that his personal character 
was a better protection for him than a regi- 
ment of horse would have been. 

That character is power, is true in a much 
higher sense than that knowledge is power. 
Mind without heart, intelligence without con- 
duct, cleverness without goodness, are powers in 
their way, but they may be powers only for 
mischief. We may be instructed or amused by 
them ; but it is sometimes as difficult to admire 
them as it would be to admire the dexterity of 
a pickpocket or the horsemanship of a high- 
wayman. 

Truthfulness, integrity, and goodness — quali- 
ties that hang not on any man's breath — form 
the essence of manly character, or, as one of our 
old writers has it, " that inbred loyalty unto 
Virtue which can serve her without a livery." 
He who possesses these qualities, united with 
strength of purpose, carries with him a power 
which is irresistible. He is strong to do good, 
strong to resist evil, and strong to bear up under 
difficulty and misfortune. When Stephen ot 
Colonna fell into the hands of his base assailants, 
and they asked him in derision, " Where is now 
your fortress ? " " Here," was his bold reply, 
placing his hand upon his heart. It is in mis- 
fortune that the character of the upright man 
shines forth with the greatest lustre ; and when 
all else fails, he takes his stand upon his in- 
tegrity and his courage. 



The Successful Man is Self- Made. 26 r 

The rules of conduct followed by Lord Ers- 
kine — a man of sterling independence of prin- 
ciple and scrupulous adherence to truth — are 
worthy of being engraven on every young man's- 
heart. " It was a first command and counsel of 
my earliest youth," he said, " always to do what 
my conscience told me to be a duty, and to* 
leave the consequence to God. I shall carry 
with me the memory, and I trust the practice^ 
of this parental lesson to the grave. I have 
hitherto followed it, and I have no reason to 
complain that my obedience to it has been a 
temporal sacrifice. I have found it, on the con- 
trary, the road to prosperity and wealth, and I 
shall point out the same path to my children for 
their pursuit." 

Every man is bound to aim at the possession? 
of a good character as one of the highest objects 
of life. The very effort to secure it by worthy- 
means will furnish him with a motive of exer- 
tion ; and his idea of manhood, in proportion as 
it is elevated, will steady and animate his mo- 
tive. It is well to have a high standard of 
life, even though we may not be able altogether 
to realize it. " The youth," says Mr. Disraeli,, 
" who does not look up will look down ; and 
the spirit that does not soar is destined perhaps 
to grovel." George Herbert wisely writes : 

" Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high, 
So shall thou humble and magnanimous be, 

Sink not in spirit ; who aimeth at the sky 
Shoots higher rau^h than he that means a 
tree."' 



262 How to Get on in the World, 

He who has a high standard of living and 
thinking will certainly do better than he who 
has none at all. " Pluck at a gown of gold," 
says the Scotch proverb, " and you may get a 
sleeve o't." Whoever tries for the highest re- 
sults cannot fail to reach a point far in advance 
of that from which he started ; and though the 
end attained may fall short of that proposed, 
still, the very effort to rise, of itself cannot fail 
to prove permanently beneficial. 

There are many counterfeits of character, 
but the genuine article is difficult to be mis- 
taken. Some, knowing its money value, would 
assume its disguise for the purpose of imposing 
mpon the unwary. Colonel Charteris said to a 
rman distinguished for his honesty, " I would 
give a thousand pounds for your good name." 
'"Why?" u Because I could make ten thou- 
sand by it," was the knave's reply. 

There is a truthfulness in action as well as in 
words, which is essential to uprightness of 
character. A man must really be what he 
seems or purposes to be. When an American 
gentleman wrote to Granville Sharp, that from 
respect for his great virtues he had named one 
of his sons after him, Sharp replied : " I must 
request you to teach him a favorite maxim of 
the family whose name you have given him — 
Always endeavor to be really what you would wish 
to appear. This maxim, as my father informed 
me, was carefully and humbly practiced by his 
father, whose sincerity, as a plain and honest 
man, thereby became the principal feature of 



The Successful Man is Self- Made. 263 

his character, both in public and private life." 
Every man who respects himself, and values 
the respect of others, will carry out the maxim 
in act — doing honestly what he purposes to do 
— putting the highest character into his work, 
scrimping nothing, but priding himself upon his 
integrity and conscientiousness. Once Crom- 
well said to Bernard — a clever but somewhat 
unscrupulous lawyer, " I understand that you 
have lately been vastty wary in your conduct ; 
do not be too confident of this : subtlety may 
deceive you, integrity never will." Men whose 
acts are at direct variance with their words, 
command no respect, and what they say has but 
little weight : even truths, when uttered by 
them, seem to come blasted from their lips. 

The true character acts rightly, whether in 
secret or in the sight of men. That boy was 
well trained who, when asked why he did not 
pocket some pears, for nobody was there to see, 
replied, " Yes, there w T as ; I was there to see 
myself; and I don't intend ever to see myself 
•do a dishonest thing." This is a simple but not 
inappropriate illustration of principle, or con- 
science, dominating in the character, and ex- 
ercising a noble protectorate over it ; not merely 
a passive influence, but an active power regu- 
lating the life. Such a principle goes on mould- 
ing the character hourly and daily, growing 
with a force that operates every moment. With- 
out this dominating influence, character has no 
protection, but is constantly liable to fall away 
before temptation ; and every such temptation 



264 How to Get on in the World. 

succumbed to, every act of meanness or dishon- 
esty, however slight, causes self-degradation. 
It matters not whether the act be successful or 
not, discovered or concealed ; the culprit is no 
longer the same, but another person ; and he is 
pursued by a secret uneasiness, by self-reproach, 
or the workings of what we call conscience, 
which is the inevitable doom of the guilty. 

And here it may be observed how greatly the 
character may be strengthened and supported 
by the cultivation of good habits. Man, it has 
been said, is a bundle of habits ; and habit is 
second nature. Metastasio entertained so 
strong an opinion as to the power of repetition 
in act and thought, that he said, " All is habit 
in mankind, even virtue itself." Butler, in his 
" Analogy," impresses the importance of care- 
ful self-discipline and firm resistance to temp- 
tation, as tending to make virtue habitual, so 
that at length it may become more easy to do 

f'ood than to give way to sin. " As habits be- 
onging to the body," he says, " are produced 
by external acts, so habits of the mind are pro- 
duced by the execution of inward practical 
purposes, i. e., carrying them into act, or acting 
upon them — the principles of obedience, ve- 
racity, justice, and charity." And again, Lord 
Brougham says, when enforcing the immense 
importance of training and example in youth, 
" I trust everything, under God, to habit, on 
-which, in all ages, the lawgiver, as well as the 
schoolmaster, has mainly placed his reliance ; 
habit, which makes everything easy, and casts 



The Successful Man is Self- Made. 265 

the difficulties upon the deviation from a 
wonted course." Thus, make sobriety a habit, 
and intemperance will be hateful ; make pru- 
dence a habit, and reckless profligacy will be- 
come revolting to every principle of conduct 
which regulates the life of the individual. 
Hence the necessity for the greatest care and 
watchfulness against the inroad of any evil 
habit ; for the character is always weakest at 
that point at which it has once given way ; and 
it is long before a principle restored can be- 
come as firm as one that has never been moved. 
It is a fine remark of a Russian writer, that 
" Habits are a necklace of pearls : untie the 
knot, and the whole unthreads." 

Wherever formed, habit acts involuntarily 
and without effort ; and it is only when you 
oppose it, that you find how powerful it has 
become. What is done once and again, soon 
gives facility and proneness. The habit at first 
may seem to have no more strength than a 
spider's web ; but, once formed, it binds us 
with a chain of iron. The small events of life, 
taken singly, may seem exceedingly unimport- 
ant, like snow that falls silently, flake by 
flake ; yet accumulated, these snowflakes form 
the avalanche. 

Self-respect, self-help, application, industry, 
integrity — all are of the nature of habits, not 
beliefs. Principles, in fact, are but the names 
which we assign to habits ; for the principles 
are words, but the habits are the things them- 
selves : benefactors or tyrants, according as 



266 How to Get on in the World, 

they are good or evil. It thus happens that as 
we grow older, a portion of our free activity 
and individuality becomes suspended in habit ; 
our actions become of the nature of fate ; and 
we are bound by the chains which we have 
woven around ourselves. 

It is indeed scarcely possible to overestimate 
the importance of training the young to vir- 
tuous habits. In them they are the easiest 
formed, and when formed, they last for life ; 
like letters cut on the bark of a tree, they grow 
and widen with age. " Train up a child in the 
way he should go, and when he is old he will 
not depart from it." The beginning holds 
within it the end ; the first start on the road 
of life determines the direction and the desti- 
nation of the journey. Remember, before you 
are five-and-twenty you must establish a char- 
acter that will serve you all your life. A^ 
habit strengthens with age, and character be- 
comes formed, any turning into a new path 
becomes more and more difficult. Hence, it 
is often harder to unlearn than to learn ; and for 
this reason the Grecian flute-player was justi- 
fied who charged double fees to those pupils 
w T ho had been taught by an inferior master. 
To uproot an old habit is sometimes a more 
painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to 
wrench out a tooth. Try and reform an habitually 
indolent, or improvident, or drunken person, and 
in a large majority of cases you will fail. For 
the habit in each case has wound itself in and 
through life until it has become an integral 



The Successful Man is Self-Made. 267 

part of it, and can not be uprooted. Hence, as 
Mr. Lynch observes, " the wisest habft of all is 
the habit of care in the formation of good habits." 

Even happiness itself may become habitual.. 
There is a habit of looking at the bright side of* 
things, and also of looking at the dark side,. 
Dr. Johnson said that the habit of looking: 
at the best side of a thing is worth more to a 
man than a thousand pounds a year. And we 
possess the power, to a great extent, of so exer- 
cising the will as to direct the thoughts upon 
objects calculated to yield happiness and im- 
provement rather than their opposites. In this 
way the habit of happy thought may be made 
to spring up like any other habit. And to bring 
up men or women with a genial nature of this 
sort, a good temper, and a happy frame of mind 
is, perhaps, of even more importance, in many 
cases, than to perfect them in much knowledge 
and many accomplishments. 

As daylight can be seen through very small 
holes, so little things will illustrate a person's 
character. Indeed, character consists in little 
acts, well and honorably performed ; daily life 
being the quarry from which we build it up, 
and rough-hew the habits which form it. One 
of the most marked tests of character is the 
manner in which we conduct ourselves toward' 
others. A graceful behavior toward superiors,, 
inferiors, and equals, is a constant source of 
pleasure. It pleases others because it indicates 
respect for their personality ; but it gives ten- 
fold more pleasure to ourselves. Every man 



268 How to Get on in the World. 

may, to a large extent, be a self-educator in 
good behavior, as in everything else ; he can be 
civil and kind, if he will, though he have not a 
cent in his pocket. Gentleness in society is 
like the silent influence of light, which gives 
color to all nature ; it is far more powerful than 
loudness or force, and far more fruitful. It 
pushes its way quietly and persistently, like the 
tiniest daffodil in spring, which raises the clod 
and thrusts it aside by the simple persistency 
of growing. 

Even a kind look will give pleasure and con- 
fer happiness. In one of Robertson's letters, he 
tells of a lady who related to him " the delight, 
the tears of gratitude, which she had witnessed 
in a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave a 
kind look on going out of church on Sunday. 
What a lesson ! How cheaply happiness can be 
given ! What opportunities we miss of doing an 
angel's work ! I remember doing it, full of sad 
feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about 
it ; and it gave an hour's sunshine to a human 
life, and lightened the load of life to a human 
heart for a time." 

Morals and manners, which give color to life, 
are of much greater importance than laws, which 
are but their manifestations. The law touches 
us here and there, but manners are about us 
everywhere, pervading society like the air we 
breathe. Good manners, as we call them, are 
neither more nor less than good behavior ; con- 
sisting of courtesy and kindness ; benevolence 
being the preponderating element in all kinds 



The Successful Man is Self- Made. 269 

of mutually beneficial and pleasant intercourse 
amongst human beings. " Civility," said Lady 
Montague, " costs nothing and buys every- 
thing." The cheapest of all things is kindne&s, 
its exercise requiring the least possible trouble 
and self-sacrifice. " Win hearts," said Bur- 
leigh to Queen Elizabeth, " and you have all 
men's hearts and purses." If we would only let 
nature act kindly, free from affectation and ar- 
tifice, the results on social good humor and hap- 
piness would be incalculable. The little courte- 
sies which form the small change of life, may 
separately appear of little intrinsic value, but 
they acquire their importance from repetition 
and accumulation. They are like the spare 
minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially 
produce such momentous results in the course 
of a twelvemonth, or in a lifetime. 

Manners are the ornament of action ; and 
there is a way of speaking a kind word, or of 
doing a kind thing, which greatly enhances 
its value. What seems to be done with a 
grudge, or as an act of condescension, is scarcely 
accepted as a favor. Yet there are men who 
pride themselves upon their gruffness ; and 
though they may possess virtue and capacity, 
their manner is often such as to render them 
almost insupportable. It is difficult to like a 
man who, though he may not pull your nose, 
habitually wounds your self-respect, and takes 
a pride in saying disagreeable things to you. 
There are others who are dreadfully condescend- 
ing, and cannot avoid seizing upon every small 



270 How to Get 07t in the World. 

opportunity of making their greatness felt, 
When Abernethy was canvassing for the office 
of surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, he 
called upon such a person — a rich grocer, one 
of the governors. The great man behind the 
counter seeing the great surgeon enter immedi- 
ately assumed the grand air toward the sup- 
posed suppliant for his vote. " I presume, sir," 
he said, " you want my vote and interest at this 
momentous epoch of your life." Abernethy, 
who hated humbugs, and felt nettled at the tone, 
replied : " No, I don't ; I want a pennyworth of 
figs ; come, look sharp and wrap them up ; I 
want to be off! " 

The gentleman is eminently distinguished for 
his self-respect. He values his character — not 
so much of it only as can be seen by others, but 
as he sees it himself; having regard for the 
approval of his inward monitor. And, as he 
respects himself, so, by the same law, does he 
respect others. Humanity is sacred in his eyes ; 
and thence proceed politeness and forbearance, 
kindness and charity. It is related of Lord 
Edward Fitzgerald that, while traveling in 
Canada, in company with the Indians, he was 
shocked by the sight of a poor squaw trudging 
along laden with her husband's trappings, while 
the chief himself walked on unencumbered. 
Lord Edward at once relieved the squaw of her 
pack by placing it upon his own shoulders — a 
beautiful instance of what the French call 
politesse de cceur — the inbred politeness of the 
true gentleman. 



The Successful Man is Self Made. 271 

The true gentleman has a keen sense of honor 
— scrupulously avoiding mean actions. His 
standard of probity in word and action is high. 
He does not shuffle or prevaricate, dodge or 
skulk ; but is honest, upright and straightfor- 
ward. His law is rectitude — action in right 
lines. When he says yes, it is a law ; and he 
dares to say the valiant no at the fitting season. 

Riches and rank have no necessary connec- 
tion with genuine gentlemanly qualities. The 
poor man may be a true gentleman — in spirit 
and in daily life. He may be honest, truthful^ 
upright, polite, temperate, courageous, self-re- 
specting, and self-helping — that is, be a true 
gentleman. The poor man with a rich spirit is 
in ail ways superior to the rich man with a poor 
spirit. To borrow St. Paul's words, the former 
is as " having nothing, yet possessing all 
things, " while the other, though possessing all 
things, has nothing. The first hopes everything,, 
and fears nothing ; the last hopes nothing, and 
fears everything. Only the poor in spirit are 
really poor. He who has lost all, but retains 
his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self- 
respect, is still rich. For such a man, the world 
is, as it were, held in trust ; his spirit dominat- 
ing over its grosser cares, he can still walk 
erect, a true gentleman. 

Occasionally, the brave and gentle character 
may be found under the humblest garb. Here 
is an old illustration, but a fine one. Once on 
a time, when the Adige suddenly overflowed its* 
banks, the bridge of Verona w?s carried away 



1272 How to Get on in the World. 

with the exception of the centre arch, on which 
stood a house, whose inhabitants supplicated 
help from the windows, while the foundations 
were visibly giving way. " I will give a hun- 
dred French louis," said the Count Spolverini, 
who stood by, " to any person who will venture 
to deliver those unfortunate people/' A young 
peasant came forth from the crowd, seized a 
boat, and pushed into the stream. He gained 
the pier, received the whole family into the boat, 
and made for the shore, where he landed them 
in safety. " Here is your money, my brave 
young fellow/' said the count. " No," was the 
answer of the young man, " I do not sell my 
life ; give the money to this poor family, who 
have need of it." Here spoke the true spirit of 
the gentleman, though he was in the garb of a 
peasant. 

There is perhaps no finer example in all his- 
tory of the self-made man than George Wash- 
ington. It may be argued that he belonged to 
a good family, and that his family was amongst 
the richest in the country at that time. This 
is true, yet there is not a boy who graduates to- 
day at our grammar schools who has not had 
far better educational advantages than had 
Washington. But he was self-taught, and he 
so prepared himself that no duty that required 
him, ever found him deficient. At an age when 
most young men are thinking about striking out 
for themselves, Washington occupied with suc- 
cess and honor positions requiring courage, 
judgment, and decision. He grew with his 



The Successful Man is Self- Made. 273. 

own deserved advance, until at length by his 
own splendid efforts, he found himself, in the 
words of Adams, " First in war, first in peace, 
and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 

With all the avenues of life open to him, or 
ready to be opened, if he will but boldly knock, 
the young man starting out in life to-day has 
every advantage. If he will carefully study 
over the splendid examples we have cited, and 
follow along the lines that led to their success^ 
his own prosperity can no longer be a matter for 
doubt. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

UNSELFISHNESS AND HELPFULNESS. 

It must never be forgotten that the position 
a man occupies at the close of his life is not an 
infallible criterion of whether he has got on in 
the world. There are some places in the world's 
history so illustrious that to occupy them it 
would be worth dying in poverty and misery. 
Ambition might well choose to be remembered 
with gratitude by succeeding generations and 
to have an immortal name, even if to attain it 
everything were sacrificed that is counted de- 
sirable in life. Who would not surrender 
wealth and ease and luxury, if in exchange 
for them he could leave such a name as Colum- 
bus, Washington, Lincoln, John Brown, Liv- 
ingstone or Howard? Posthumous glory counts 
for something in the reckoning. And this is 
often attained by self-sacrifice. Revile the 
world as we may, it does not forget the men 
who have done it service. The men w T ho have 
forgotten themselves, who have not striven after 
their own advantage, but have devoted their 
lives to the good of humanity, achieve immor- 
tality. They get on in the world in the sense 
of receiving a crown that cannot fade and a 
glory outshining that of kings and millionaires. 
The hero has a reward all his own and he may 
well renounce the lower rewards of riches and 
ease to gain it. But his qualities must be 
heroic or he will make his sacrifices to no pur- 
274 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness . 275 

pose. He must be true to himself at all cost. 
Washington was a brilliant example of this 
fidelity to his ideal. Sparks tells us that when 
he clearly saw his duty before him, he did it at 
all hazards, and with inflexible integrity. He 
did not do it for effect ; nor did he think of 
glory, or of fame and its rewards ; but of the 
right thing to be done, and the best way of 
doing it. 

Yet Washington had a most modest opinion 
of himself; and when offered the chief com- 
mand of the American patriot army he hesi- 
tated to accept it until it was pressed upon 
him. When acknowledging in Congress the 
honor w T hich had been done him in selecting 
him to so important a trust, on the execution 
of which the future of his country in a great 
measure depended, Washington said : " I beg it 
may be remembered, lest some unlucky event 
should happen unfavorable to my reputation, 
that I this day declare, with the utmost sin- 
cerity, I do not think myself equal to the com- 
mand I am honored with." 

And in his letter to his wife, communicating 
to her his appointment as commander-in-chief, 
he said : " I have used every endeavor in my 
power to avoid it, not only from my unwilling- 
ness to part with you and the family, but from 
xi consciousness of its being a trust too great for 
my capacity ; and that I should enjoy more real 
happiness in one month with you at home than I 
have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, 
if my stay were to be seven times seven years. 



276 How to Get on in the World. 

But, as it has been a kind of destiny that has 
thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that 
my undertaking is designed for some good 
purpose. It was utterly out of my power ta 
refuse the appointment, without exposing my 
character to such censures as would have re- 
flected dishonor upon myself, and given pain 
to my friends. This, I am sure, could not, and 
ought not, to be pleasing to you, and must have 
lessened me considerably in my own esteem." 

Washington pursued his upright course 
through life, first as commander-in-chief, and 
afterward as President, never faltering in the 
path of duty. He had no regard for popularity ? 
but held to his purpose through good and through 
evil report, often at the risk of his power and 
influence. Thus, on one occasion, when the 
ratification of a treaty, arranged by Mr. Jay 
with Great Britain, was in question, Washing- 
ton was urged to reject it. But his honor, and 
the honor of his country, was committed, and 
he refused to do so. A great outcry was raised 
against the treaty, and for a time Washington 
was so unpopular that he is said to have been 
actually stoned by the mob. But he, never- 
theless, held it to be his duty to ratify the 
treaty ; and it was carried out in despite of 
petitions and remonstrances from all quarters. 
"While I feel," he said, in answer to the 
remonstrants, "the most lively gratitude for 
the many instances of approbation from my 
country, I can no otherwise deserve it than by 
obe \ ing the dictates of my conscience." 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 277 

When the Oregon, coming along the Atlan- 
tic coast, was struck in the middle of the night 
by that coaster, and a great wound was made 
in her side, through which the water was pour- 
ing, Captain Murray stood on the bridge as 
calm, apparently, as a May morning, and waited 
until every passenger was off, and every officer 
was off, and every man on the crew was off, and 
the last man to step from the sinking ship was 
the captain himself; and ten minutes after he 
stepped off, the steamer gave a quiver, as of 
apprehension, and then plunged to the bottom 
of the ocean. The steamer was his, and the 
men were his, and the boats were his, and the 
passengers were his, all for this : that he might 
save them in time of peril ; and he would go 
down to the bottom of the ocean rather than 
that, by his recreancy, one of those intrusted 
to him should perish. This was the true hero, 
the man who would die rather than be false to 
duty. 

One of the most striking instances that could 
be given of the character of the dutiful, truth- 
ful, laborious man, who works on bravely in 
spite of difficulty and physical suffering, is pre- 
sented in the life of the late George Wilson. 
Professor of Technology in the University of 
Edinburgh. Wilson's life was, indeed, a marvel 
of cheerful laboriousness ; exhibiting the power 
of the soul to triumph over the body, and 
almost to set it at defiance. It might be taken 
as an illustration of the saying of the whaling- 
captain to Dr. Kane, as to the power of moral 



2j8 How to Get on in the World. 

force over physical : " Bless you, sir, the soul 
will any day lift the body out of its boots ! " 

A fragile but bright and lively boy, he had 
scarcely entered manhood ere his constitution 
began to exhibit signs of disease. As early, 
indeed, as his seventeenth year, he began to 
complain of melancholy and sleeplessness, 
supposed to be the effects of bile. " I don't 
think I shall live long," he then said to a 
friend ; " my mind will — must work itself out, 
and the body will soon follow it." A strange 
confession for a boy to make ! But he gave his 
physical health no fair chance. His life was all 
brain work, study, and competition. When he 
took exercise it was in sudden bursts, which 
did him more harm than good. Long walks 
in the Highlands jaded and exhausted him ; 
and he returned to his brain-work unrested and 
unrefreshed. 

It was during one of his forced walks of 
some twenty-four miles, in the neighborhood of 
Stirling, that he injured one of his feet, and he 
returned home seriously ill. The result was an 
abscess, disease of the ankle-joint, and a long 
agony, which ended in the amputation of the 
right foot. But he never relaxed in his labors. 
He was now writing, lecturing and teaching 
chemistry. Rheumatism and acute inflamma- 
tion of the eye next attacked him, and w r ere 
treated by cupping, blistering, and colchicum. 
Unable himself to write, he went on preparing 
his lectures, which he dictated to his sister. 
Pain haunted him day and night, and sleep 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 279 

was only forced by morphia. While in this 
state of general prostration symptoms of pul- 
monary disease began to show themselves. Yet 
he continued to give the weekly lectures to 
which he stood committed to the Edinburgh 
School of Arts. Not one w T as shirked, though 
their delivery, before a large audience, was a 
most exhausting duty. " Well, there's another 
nail put into my coffin, " was the remark made 
on throwing off his top-coat on returning home ; 
and a sleepless night almost invariably followed. 

At twenty-seven, Wilson was lecturing ten, 
eleven, or more hours weekly, usually with 
setons or open blister- wounds upon him — his 
" bosom friends," he used to call them. He felt 
the shadow of death upon him, and he worked 
as if his days were numbered. " Don't be sur- 
prised," he wrote to a friend, " if any morning 
at breakfast you hear that I am gone." But 
while he said so, he did not in the least degree 
indulge in the feeling of sickly sentimentality. 
He worked on as cheerfully and hopefully as 
if in the very fullness of strength. " To none," 
said he, " is life so sweet as to those who have 
lost all fear of dying." 

Sometimes he w r as compelled to desist from 
his labors by sheer debility, occasioned by loss 
of blood from the lungs ; but after a few weeks' 
rest and change of air, he would return to his 
w r ork, saying, " The water is rising in the well 
again ! " Though disease had fastened on his 
lungs, and was spreading there, and though suf- 
fering from a distressing cough, he went on 



280 How to Get o?i in the World. 

lecturing as usual. To add to his troubles, 
when one day endeavoring to recover himself 
from a stumble occasioned by his lameness, he 
overstrained his arm, and broke the bone near 
the shoulder. But he recovered from his suc- 
cessive accidents and illnesses in the most 
extraordinary way. The reed bent, but did not 
break ; the storm passed, and it stood erect as 
before. 

There was no worry, nor fever, nor fret about 
him ; but instead, cheerfulness, patience and 
unfailing perseverance. His mind, amidst alt 
his sufferings, remained perfectly calm and 
serene. He went about his daily work with an 
apparently charmed life, as if he had the strength 
of many men in him. Yet all the while he 
knew he was dying, his chief anxiety being to 
conceal his state from those about him at home, 
to whom the knowledge of his actual condition 
would have been inexpressibly distressing. " I 
am cheerful among strangers," he said, " and 
try to live day by day as a dying man." 

He went on teaching as before — lecturing to 
the Architectural Institute and to the School of 
Arts. One day, after a lecture before the latter 
institute, he lay down to rest, and was shortly 
awakened by the rupture of a blood-vessel, 
which occasioned him the loss of a considerable 
quantity of blood. He did not experience the 
despair and agony that Keats did on a like 
occasion, though he equally knew that the mes- 
senger of death had come, and was waiting for 
him. He appeared at the family meals as 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 281 

usual, and next day he lectured twice, punct- 
ually fulfilling his engagements ; but the exer- 
tion of speaking was followed by a second attack 
of hemorrhage. He now became seriously ill, 
and it was doubted whether he would survive 
the night. But he did survive ; and during his 
convalescence he was appointed to an important 
public office — that of director of the Scottish 
Industrial Museum, which involved a great 
amount of labor, as well as lecturing, in his 
capacity of professor of technology, which he 
held in connection with the office. 

From this time forward, his "dear museum," 
as he called it, absorbed all his surplus energies. 
While busily occupied in collecting models and 
specimens for the museum, he filled up his odds- 
and-ends of time in lecturing in Ragged Schoois 
and Medical Missionary Societies. He gave 
himself no rest, either of mind or body ; and 
"" to die working " was the fate he envied. His 
mind would not give in, but his poor body was 
forced to yield, and a severe attack of hemor- 
rhage — bleeding from both lungs and stomach — 
compelled him to relax in his labors. " For a 
month, or some forty days," he wrote — " a 
dreadful Lent — the wind has blowm geographi- 
cally from ' Araby the blest,' but thermometri- 
cally from Iceland the accursed. I have been 
made a prisoner of war, hit by an icicle in the 
lungs, and have shivered and burned alternately 
for a large portion of the last month, and spat 
blood till I grew pale with coughing. Now I 
am better, and to-morrow I give my concluding 



282 How to Get o?i in the World. 

lecture (on technology), thankful that I have 
contrived, notwithstanding all my troubles, to 
carry on without missing a lecture to the last 
day of the Faculty of Arts, to which I belong." 

How long was it to last ? He himself began 
to wonder, for he had long felt his life as if ebb- 
ing away. At length he became languid, 
weary, and unfit for work ; even the writing of 
a letter cost him a painful effort, and he felt 
" as if to lie down and sleep were the only things 
worth doing." Yet shortly after, to help a 
Sunday school, he wrote his " Five Gateways 
of Knowledge," as a lecture, and afterward 
expanded it into a book. He also recovered 
strength sufficient to enable him to proceed with 
his lectures to the institutions to which he 
belonged, besides on various occasions under- 
taking to do other people's work. " I am 
looked upon as being as mad," he wrote to his 
brother, " because on a hasty notice, I took a 
defaulting lecturer's place at the Philosophical 
Institution, and discoursed on the polarization 
of light. . . . But I like work : it is a 
family weakness." 

Then followed chronic malaise — sleepless 
nights, days of pain, and more spitting of blood. 
" My only painless moments." he says, " were 
when lecturing." In this state of prostration 
and disease, the indefatigable man undertook to 
write the " Life of Edward Forbes ; " and he 
did it, like every thing he undertook, with 
admirable ability. He proceeded with his lec- 
tures as usual. To an association of teachers 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 283 

he delivered a discourse on the educational value 
of industrial science. After he had spoken to 
his audience for an hour, he left them to say 
whether he should go on or not, and they 
cheered him on to another half-hour's address, 
" It is curious," he wrote, "the feeling of hav- 
ing an audience, like clay in your hands, to 
mould for a season as you please. It is a ter- 
ribly responsible power. . . . I do not 
mean for a moment to imply that I am indiffer- 
ent to the good opinion of others — far otherwise ; 
but to gain this is much less a concern with me 
than to deserve it. It was not so once. I had 
no wish for unmerited praise, but I was too 
ready to settle that I did merit it. Now, the 
word Duty seems to me the biggest word in the 
world, and is uppermost in all my serious doings. 

That was written only about four months 
before his death. A little later he wrote : " I 
spin my thread of life from week to week, 
rather than from year to year." Constant 
attacks of bleeding from the lungs sapped his 
little remaining strength, but did not altogether 
disable him from lecturing. He was amused 
by one of his friends proposing to put him 
under trustees for the purpose of looking after 
his health. But he would not be restrained 
from working so lonir as a vestige of strength 
remained. 

One day, in the autumn of 1859. he returned 
from his customary lecture in the University of 
Edinburgh with a severe pain in his side. He 
was scarcely able to crawl up stairs. Medical 



284 How to Get on in the World, 

aid was sent for, and he was pronounced to be 
suffering from pleurisy and inflammation of the 
lungs. His enfeebled frame was ill able to 
resist so severe a disease, and he sank peacefully 
to the rest he so longed for, after a few days' 
illness. 

The life of George Wilson — so admirably 
and affectionately related by his sister — is prob- 
ably one of the most marvellous records of pain 
and long-suffering, and yet of persistent, noble 
and useful work, that is to be found in the 
whole history of literature. 

Instances of this heroic quality of self-for- 
getfulness in the interest of others are more 
frequent than we realize. Dr. Louis Albert 
Banks mentions the following illustration : 
*" The other day, in one of our cities, two small 
hoys signalled a street-car. When the car 
stopped it was noticed that one boy was lame. 
With much solicitude the other boy helped the 
■cripple aboard, and, after telling the conductor 
to go ahead, returned to the sidewalk. The 
lame boy braced himself up in his seat so that 
he could look out of the car window, and the 
other passengers observed that at intervals the 
little fellow would wave his hand and smile, 
following the direction of his glances, the pas- 
sengers saw the other boy running along the 
■sidewalk, straining every muscle to keep up 
with the car. They watched his pantomime in 
silence for a few blocks, and then a gentleman 
asked the lame boy who the other boy was : 
4 My brother,' was the prompt reply. ' Why 



Unselfislmess and Helpfulness. 285 

does he not ride with you in the car? was 

the next question. ' Because he hasn't any 
money/ answered the lame boy, sorrowfully. 
But the little runner — running that his crippled 
brother might ride — had a face in which sorrcw 
had no part, only the gladness of a self-denying 
soul. O my brother, you who long to do great 
service for the King and reach life's noblest 
triumph, here is your picture — willing to run 
that the crippled lives may ride, willing to bear 
one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law 
of Christ — that is the spirit of the King's 
country." 

" The path of service is open to all, nay, we 
stumble on to the path daily without knowing 
it. Ivan Tourguenieff, in one of his beautiful 
poems in prose, says, ' I was walking in the 
street ; a beggar stopped me — a frail old man. 
His inflamed, tearful eyes, blue lips, rough 
rags, disgusting sores — oh, how horribly pov- 
erty had disfigured the unhappy creature ! He 
stretched out to me his red, swollen, filthy 
hands ; he groaned and whimpered for alms. 
I felt in all my pockets ; no purse, watch, or 
handkerchief did I find ; I had left them all at 
home. The beggar waited, and his outstretched 
hand twitched and trembled. Embarrassed and 
confused, I seized his dirty hand and pressed it. 
* Don't be vexed with me, brother ; I have 
nothing with me, brother.' The beggar raised 
his bloodshot eyes to mine ; his blue lips smiled, 
and he returned the pressure of my chilled 
fingers, ' Never mind, brother,' stammered he ; 



286 How to Get on in the World. 

* thank you for this — this, too, was a gift, broth- 
er.' I felt that I, too, had received a gift from 
ray brother. This is a line of service open to 
us all." 

A gentleman writing to the Chicago Interior, 
relates this incident in his own career as a 
prosecuting attorney: A boy of fifteen was 
brought in for trial. He had no attorney, no 
witnesses and no friends. As the prosecuting 
attorney looked him over, he was pleased with 
his appearance. He had nothing cf the hard- 
ened criminal about him. In fact, he was 
impressed that the prisoner was an unusually 
bright-looking little fellow. He found that the 
charge against him was burglary. There had 
been a fire in a dry goods store, where some of 
the merchandise had not been entirely consumed. 
The place had been boarded up to protect, for 
the time being, the damaged articles. Several 
boys, among them this defendant, had pulled 
off a board or two, and were helping themselves 
to the contents of the place, when the police 
arrived. The others got away, and this was the 
only one caught. The attorney asked the boy 
if he wanted a jury trial. He said " No ; " that 
he was guilty, and preferred to plead guilty. 

Upon the plea being entered, the prosecutor 
asked him where his home was. He replied 
that he had no home. 

" Where are your parents ? " was asked. He 
answered that they were both dead. 

"Have you no relatives?" was the next 
question. 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 287 

" Only a sister, who works out," was the 
answer. 

" How long have you been in jail ? " 

" Two months." 

" Has any one been to see you during that 
time?" 

" No, sir." 

The last answer was very like a sob. The 
utterly forlorn and friendless condition of the 
boy, coupled with his frankness and pleasing 
presence, caused a lump to come into the law- 
yer's throat, and into the throats of many others, 
who were listening to the dialogue. Finally 
the attorney suggested to the judge that it was 
a pity to send the boy to the reformatory, and 
that what he needed more than anything else 
was a home. 

By this time the court officials, jurors and 
spectators had crowded around, the better to 
hear what was being said. At this juncture one 
of the jurors addressed the court, and said : 
" Your honor, a year ago I lost my only boy. 
If he were alive, he would be about this boy's 
age. Ever since he died I have been wanting 
a boy. If you will let me have this little fel- 
low, I'll give him a home, put him to work in 
my printing establishment, and treat him as if 
he were my own son." 

The judge turned to the boy, and said : " This 
gentleman is a successful business man. Do 
you think, if you are given this splendid oppor- 
tunity, you can make a man of yourself ?" 

" I'll try," very joyfully answered the boy. 



n %% How to Get on in the World. 

" Very well ; sign a recognizance, and go 
with the gentleman," said the judge. 

A few minutes later the boy and his new 
friend left together, while tears of genuine 
pleasure stood in many eyes in the crowded 
court-room. The lawyer, who signs his name 
to the story, declares that the boy turned out 
well, and proved to be worthy of his benefac- 
tor's kindness. 

Deeds like that are waiting for the doing on 
<every hand, and no man gives himself up to 
this spirit of helpfulness for others without 
strengthening his own life. 

This spirit of self-forget fulness and cheerful 
helpfulness is an essential quality of the true 
heroic soul — the soul that is not disturbed by 
circumstances, but goes on its way, strong and 
imparting strength. 

We have to be on our guard against small 
troubles, which, by encouraging, we are apt to 
magnify into great ones. Indeed, the chief 
source of worry in the world is not real but 
imaginary evil — small vexations and trivial 
afflictions. In the presence of a great sorrow, 
all petty troubles disappear; but we are too 
ready to take some cherished misery to our 
bosom, and to pet it there. Very often it is 
the child of our fancy ; and, forgetful of the 
many means of happiness which lie within our 
reach, we indulge this spoiled child of ours 
until it masters us. We shut the door against 
cheerfulness, and surround ourselves with 
.gloom. The habit gives a coloring to our 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 289 

life. We grow querulous, moody and unsym- 
pathetic. Our conversation becomes full of 
regrets. We are harsh in our judgment of 
others. We are unsociable, and think every- 
body else is so. We make our breast a store- 
house of pain, which we inflict upon ourselves 
as well as upon others. 

This disposition is encouraged by selfishness ; 
indeed, it is, for the most part, selfishness un- 
mingled, without any admixture of sympathy 
or consideration for the feelings of those about 
us. It is simply wilfulness in the wrong direc- 
tion. It is wilful, because it might be avoided. 
Let the necessitarians argue as they may, free- 
dom of will and action is the possession of 
every man and woman. It is sometimes our 
glory, and very often it is our shame ; all 
depends upon the manner in which it is used. 
We can choose to look at the bright side of 
things or at the dark. We can follow good 
and eschew evil thoughts. We can be wrong- 
headed and wrong-hearted, or the reverse, as 
we ourselves determine. The world will be to 
each one of us very much what we make it. 
The cheerful are its real possessors, for the world 
belongs to those who enjoy it. 

It must, however, be admitted that there are 
cases beyond the reach of the moralist. Once,. 
when a miserable-looking dyspeptic called upon 
a leading physician, and laid his case before 
him, " Oh !" said the doctor, " you only want a 
good hearty laugh : go and see Grimaldi." 
" Alas ! " said the miserable patient, J am 



290 How to Get on in the World. 

Grimaldi !" So, when Smollett, oppressed by 
disease, traveled over Europe in the hope of 
finding health, he saw everything through his 
own jaundiced eyes. 

The restless, anxious, dissatisfied temper, that 
is ever ready to run and meet care half-way, is 
fatal to all happiness and peace of mind. How 
often do we see men and women set themselves 
about as if with stiff bristles, so that one dare 
scarcely approach them without fear of being 
pricked ! For want of a little occasional com- 
mand over one's temper, an amount of misery 
is occasioned in society which is positively fright- 
ful. Thus enjoyment is turned into bitterness, 
and life becomes like a journey barefooted 
among thorns and briers and prickles. " Though 
sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, 
" like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a 
single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the 
chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering 
trifles to vex us ; and in prudently cultivating 
an under-growth of small pleasures, since very 
few great ones, alas ! are let on long leases." 

Cheerfulness also accompanies patience, which 
is one of the main conditions of happiness and 
success in life. " He that w T ill be served," says 
George Herbert, "must be patient." It was 
said of the cheerful and patient King Alfred 
that " good fortune accompanied him like a gift 
of God." Marlborough's expectant calmness 
was great, and a principal secret of his success 
as a general. " Patience will overcome all 
things," he wrote to Godolphin, in 1702. la 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 291 

the midst of a great emergency, while baffled 
and opposed by his allies, he said, " Having 
done all that is possible, we should submit with 
patience." 

One of the chiefest of blessings is Hope, the 
most common of possessions ; for, as Thales the 
philosopher said, " Even those who have nothing 
else have hope." Hope is the great helper of 
the poor. It has even been styled " the poor 
man's bread." It is also the sustainer and in- 
spirer of great deeds. It is recorded of Alex- 
ander the Great that, when he succeeded to the 
throne of Macedon, he gave away among his 
friends the greater part of the estates which his 
father had left him ; and when Perdiccas asked 
him what he reserved for himself, Alexander 
answered, " The greatest possession of all — 
Hope !" 

The pleasures of memory, however great, are 
stale compared with those of hope ; for hope is 
the parent of all effort and endeavor; and 
"* everv gift of noble origin is breathed upon by 
Hope's perpetual breath." It may be said to 
be the moral engine that moves the world and 
keeps it in action ; and at the end of all there 
.stands before us what Robertson of Ellon styled 
" The Great Hope." 

The qualities of the strong self-reliant man 
are sometimes accompanied by a brusqueness of 
manner that leads others to misjudge them. As 
Knox was retiring from the queen's presence on 
one occasion he overheard one of the royal 
attendants say to another, " He is not afraid ! " 



292 How to Get on in the World, 

Turning round upon them, he said : " And 
why should the pleasing face of a gentleman 
frighten me ? I have looked on the faces of 
angry men, and yet have not been afraid beyond 
measure." When the Reformer, worn out by 
excess of labor and anxiety, was at length laid 
to his rest, the regent, looking down into the 
open grave, exclaimed in words which made a 
strong impression from their aptness and truth 
— " There lies he who never feared the face of 
man ! " 

Luther also was thought by some to be 1 
mere compound of violence and ruggedness. 
But, as in the case of Knox, the times in which 
he lived were rude and violent, and the work 
he had to do could scarcely have been accom- 
plished with gentleness and suavity. To rouse 
Europe from its lethargy, he had to speak and 
write with force, and even vehemence. Yet 
Luther's vehemence was only in words. His 
apparently rude exterior covered a warm heart. 
In private life he was gentle, loving and affec- 
tionate. He was simple and homely, even to 
commonness. Fond of all common pleasures 
and enjoyments, he was any thing but an austere 
man or a bigot ; for he was hearty, genial, and 
even "jolly." Luther was the common people's 
hero in his life-time, and he remains so in Ger- 
many to this day. 

Samuel Johnson was rude and often gruff in 
manner. But he had been brought up in a 
rough school. Poverty in early life had made 
him acquainted with strange companions. He 



Unselfishness a?id Helpfulness. 293 

had wandered in the streets with Savage for 
nights together, unable between them to raise 
money enough to pay for a bed. When his 
indomitable courage and industry at length 
secured for him a footing in society, he still bore 
upon him the scars of his early sorrows and 
struggles. He was by nature strong and robust, 
and his experience made him unaccommodating 
and self- asserting. When he was once asked 
why he was not invited to dine out as Garrick 
was, he answered, " Because great lords and 
ladies do not like to have their mouths stopped ; " 
and Johnson was a notorious mouth-stopper^ 
though what he said was always worth listen- 
ing to. 

Johnson's companions spoke of him as " Ursa 
Major ; " but, as Goldsmith generously said of 
him, " No man alive has a more tender heart ; 
he has nothing of the bear about him but his 
skin." The kindliness of Johnson's nature was 
shown on one occasion by the manner in which 
he assisted a supposed lady in crossing Fleet 
street. He gave her his arm and led her across, 
not observing that she was in liquor at the time. 
But the spirit of the act was not the less kind 
on that account. On the other hand, the con- 
duct of the book-seller on whom Johnson once 
called to solicit employment, and who, regard- 
ing his athletic but uncouth person, told him he 
had better " go buy a porter's knot and carry 
trunks," in howsoever bland tones the advice 
might have been communicated, was simply 
brutal. 



294 How to Get on in the World. 

. While captiousness of manner, and the habit 
of disputing and contradicting everything said, 
is chilling and repulsive, the opposite habit of 
assenting to, and sympathizing with, every 
statement made, or emotion expressed, is almost 
equally disagreeable. It is unmanly, and is 
felt to be dishonest. " It may seem difficult/' 
says Richard Sharp, " to steer always between 
bluntness and plain-dealing, between giving 
merited praise and lavishing indiscriminate 
flattery ; but it is very easy — good humor, kind 
heartedness and perfect simplicity, being all 
that are requisite to do what is right in the right 
way." 

At the same time many are un polite, not be- 
cause they mean to be so, but because they are 
awkward, and perhaps know no better. Thus, 
when Gibbon had published the second and 
third volumes of his " Decline and Fall," the 
Duke of Cumberland met him one day, and 
accosted him with, " How do you do, Mr. 
Gibbon? I see you are always at it in the old 
way — scribble, scribble, scribble!" The duke 
probably intended to pay the author a compli- 
ment, but did not know how better to do it than 
in this blunt and apparently rude way. 

Again, many persons are thought to be stiff, 
reserved and proud, when they are only shy. 
Shyness is characteristic of most yeople of 
Teutonic race. It has been styled " the Eng- 
lish mania," but it pervades, to a greater or less 
degree, all the Northern nations. The average 
Frenchman or Irishman excels the average 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 295 

Englishman, German or American in courtesy 
and ease of manner, simply because it is bis 
nature. They are more social and less self- 
dependent than men of Teutonic origin, more 
demonstrative and less reticent ; they are more 
communicative, conversational, and freer in 
their intercourse with each other in all respects ; 
while men of German race are comparatively 
stiff, reserved, shy and awkward. At the same 
time, a people may exhibit ease, gayety and 
sprightliness of character, and yet possess no 
deeper qualities calcutated to inspire respect. 
They may have every grace of manner, and yet 
be heartless, frivolous, selfish. The character 
may be on the surface only, and without any 
solid qualities for a foundation. 

There can be no doubt as to which of the two 
sorts of people — the easy and graceful, or the 
stiff and awkward — it is most agreeable to meet 
either in business, in society, or in the casual 
intercourse of life. Which make the fastest 
friends, the truest men of their word, the most 
conscientious performers of their duty, is an 
entirely different matter. 

As an epitome of good sound advice as to 
getting on in the world there has probably been 
nothing written so forcible, quaint and full of 
common sense as the following preface to an 
old Pennsylvanian Almanac, entitled " Poor 
Richard Improved, " by the great philosopher, 
Benjamin Franklin. It is homely, simple, sen- 
sible and practical — a condensation of the pro- 
verbial wit, wisdom and every-day philosophy, 



296 How to Get on in the World. 

useful at all times, and essentially so in the 
present clay : 

" Courteous Reader — I have heard that 
nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to 
find his works respectfully quoted by others. 
Judge, then, how much I must have been 
gratified by an incident I am going to relate ta 
you. I stopped my horse lately where a great 
number of people were collected at an auction 
of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not 
being come, they were conversing on the bad- 
ness of the times, and one of the company 
called to a plain, clean old man with white 
locks, ' Pray, Father Abraham, what think you 
of the times ? Will not these heavy taxes quite 
ruin the country ? How shall we ever be able 
to pay them ? What would you advise us to 
do?' Father Abraham stood up, and replied : 
' If you would have my advice I will give it 
you in short, for, A w T ord to the wise is enough, 
as poor Richard says.' They joined in desiring 
him to speak his mind, and gathering round 
him, he proceeded as follows : 

u • Friends, the taxes are indeed very heavy, 
and if those laid on by the government were 
the only ones we had to pay we might more 
easily discharge them ; but we have many 
others, and much more grievous to some of us. 
We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, 
three times as much by our pride, and four 
times as much by our folly 5 and from these 
taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver 
us, by allowing an abatement. However, let 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 297 

11s hearken to good advice, and something may 
be done for us. God helps them that help 
themselves, as poor Richard says. 

" ' I. It would be thought a hard govern- 
ment that should tax its people one-tenth part 
of their time, to be employed in its service ; 
but idleness taxes many of us more ; sloth, by 
bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. 
Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor 
wears ; while, The used key is always bright, 
as poor Richard says. But, Dost thou love 
life, then do not squander time, for that is the 
stuff life is made of, as poor Richard says. 
How much more than is necessary do we spend 
in sleep ! forgetting that, The sleeping fox 
catches no poultry ; and that, There will be 
sleeping in the grave, as poor Richard says. 

" * If time be of all things the most precious, 
wasting time must be, as poor Richard says, 
the greatest prodigality ; since, as he elsewhere 
tells us, Lost time is never found again ; and, 
What we call time enough always proves little 
•enough. Let us, then, be up and be doing, 
and doing to the purpose ; so by diligence 
shall we do more, and with less perplexity. 
Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry 
all easy ; and, He that riseth late must trot all 
day, and shall scarce overtake his business at 
night ; while, Laziness travels so slowly that 
poverty soon overtakes him. Drive thy busi- 
ness, let not that drive thee ; and, Early to bed, 
and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy 
and wise, as poor Richard says. 



298 How to Get 071 in the World. 

" ' So what signifies wishing and hoping for 
better times ? We may make these times better 
if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not risk, 
and. He that lives upon hopes will die fasting. 
There are no gains without pains ; then, Help, 
hands, for I have no lands ; or, if I have, they 
are smartly taxed. He that hath a trade, hath 
an estate ; and, He that hath a calling, hath an 
office of profit and honor, as poor Richard says - r 
but then the trade must be worked at, and 
the calling followed, or neither the estate 
nor the office will enable us to pay our 
taxes. If we are industrious we shall never 
starve; for, At the working man's house, 
hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor 
will the bailiff or the constable enter ; for, 
Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth 
them. What though you have found no treas- 
ure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy ? 
Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God 
gives all things to industry. Then, plough 
deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have 
corn to sell and keep. Work while it is called 
to-day, for you know not how much you may 
be hindered to-morrow. One to-day is worth 
two to-morrows, as poor Richard says ; and, fur- 
ther, never leave that till to-morrow that you 
can do to-day. If you were a servant, would 
you not be ashamed that a good master 
would catch you idle ? Are you then your 
own master, be ashamed to catch yourself 
idle, when there is to be so much done 
for yourself, your family, your country, and 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness, 299 

your king. Handle your tools without mittens ; 
remember that the cat in gloves catches no mice, 
as poor Richard says. It is true there is much 
to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed ; 
but stick to it steadily, and you will see great 
effects ; for, Constant dropping wears away 
stones ; and, By diligence and patience the 
mouse ate in two the cable ; and, Little strokes 
fell great oaks. 

" ' Methinks I hear some of you say, "Must a 
man afford himself no leisure?" I will tell 
thee, my friend, what poor Richard says — 
Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain 
leisure ; and since thou art not sure of a minute, 
throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for 
doing something useful. This leisure the dili- 
gent man will obtain, but the lazy man never ; 
for a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two 
things. Many, without labor, would live by 
their wits only, but they break for want of 
stock ; whereas industry gives comfort, and 
plenty, and respect. Fly pleasures, and they 
will follow you. The diligent spinner has a 
large shift ; and, Now I have a sheep and a 
cow, everybody bids me good-morrow. 

" ' II. But with our industry we must like- 
wise be steady, settled and careful, and oversee 
our own affairs with our own eyes, and not 
trust to others ; for, as poor Richard says — , 
" c I never saw an oft-removed tree, 

Nor yet an oft-removed family, 

That throve so well as those that settled be. 

And again — Three removes as bad as a fire* 



300 How to Get on in the World. 

And again — Keep thy shop, and thy shop will 
keep thee. And again — If you would have 
your business done, go ; if not, send. And 
again — 

" ' He that by the plough would thrive 
Himself must either hold or drive. 
And again — The eye of a master will do more 
work than both his hands. And again — Want 
•of care does us more damage than want of 
knowledge. And again — Not to oversee work- 
men is to leave them your purse open. Trust- 
ing too much to others' care is the ruin of 
many ; for, in the affairs of this world, men are 
saved, not by faith, but by the want of it. But 
a man's own care is profitable ; for if you would 
have a faithful servant, and one that you like, 
serve yourself. A little neglect may cause 
great mischief; For want of a nail the shoe 
was lost ; for want of a shoe the horse was lost ; 
for want of a horse the rider was lost, being 
overtaken and slain by the enemy — all for want 
of a little care about a horse-shoe nail. 

" ' III. So much for industry, my friends, 
and attention to one's own business; but to 
these we must add frugality, if we would 
make our industry more certainly successful. 
A man may, if he knows not how to save as he 
gets, keep his nose to the grindstone all his life, 
and die not worth a groat at last. A fat 
kitchen makes a lean will ; and 
46 ' Many estates are spent in the getting, 

Since women for tea forsook spinning and 
knitting, 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 301 

And men for punch forsook hewing and 
splitting. 

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as 
well as of getting. The Indies have not made 
Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater 
than her incomes. 

" 'Away, then, with your expensive follies, 
and you will not then have so much cause to 
complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and 
chargeable families ; for 

" ' Women and wine, game and deceit, 

Make the wealth small and the want great. 
" 'And further — What maintains one vice 
would bring up two children. You may think, 
perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch, now 
and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a 
little finer, and a little entertainment now and 
then, can be no great matter ; but remember — 
Many a little makes a nickle. Beware of little 
expenses — A small leak will sink a great ship, 
as poor Richard says. And moreover — Fools 
make feasts, and wise men eat them. 

" ' Here you are all got together at this sale 
of fineries and nick-nacks. You call them 
goods ; but if you do not take care they will 
prove evils to some of you. You expect they 
will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may 
for less than they cost ; but if you have 
no occasion for them they must be dear 
to you. Remember what poor Richard 
says — Buy what thou hast no need of, and 
ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries. 



302 How to Get on in the World. 

And again — At a great pennyworth pause 
awhile. He means that the cheapness is appar- 
ent only, and not real ; or the bargain, by 
straitening thee in thy business, may do thee 
more harm than good ; for in another place he 
says — Many have been ruined by buying good 
pennyworths. Again — It is foolish to lay out 
money in a purchase of repentance ; and yet 
this folly is practised every day at auctions, for 
want of minding the almanac. Many a one, 
for the sake of finery on the back, has gone 
with a hungry belly and half-starved his 
family. Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, 
put out the kitchen fire, as poor Richard says. 
These are not the necessaries of life ; they can 
scarcely be called the conveniences ; and yet, 
only because they look pretty, how many want 
to have them ! By these, and other extrava- 
gances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, 
and forced to borrow of those whom they 
formerly despised, but who, through industry 
and frugality, have maintained their stand- 
ing ; in which case it appears plainly that, A 
ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentle- 
man on his knees, as poor Richard says. Per- 
haps they have had a small estate left them, 
which they knew not the getting of ; they think 
it is day, and will never be night ; that a little 
to be spent out of so mueli is not worth mind- 
ing ; but, Always taking out of the meal-tub, 
and never putting in, soon comes to be the bot- 
tom, as poor Richard says ; and then, When 
the well is dry, they know the w 7 orth of water. 



Unselfishness and Helpfulness. 303 

But this they might have known before if they 
had taken his advice — If they would know the 
value of money, go and try to borrow some ; for, 
He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing, as 
poor Richard says ; and, indeed, so does he that 
lends to such people when he goes to get his own 
in again. Poor Dick further advises, and says : 
" ' Fond pride or dress is sure a very curse, 
Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse. 

And again — Pride is as loud a beggar as want, 
and a great deal more saucy. When you have 
bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more,, 
that your appearance may be all of a piece ; 
but poor Dick says, It is easier to suppress the 
first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it. 
And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the 
rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal 
the ox. 
" ' Vessels large may venture more, 

But little boats should keep near shore. 
It is, however, a folly soon punished ; for, as 
poor Richard says, Pride that dines on 
vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted 
with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped 
with infamy. And, after all, of what 
use is this pride of appearance, for which 
so much is risked, so much is suffered? 
It cannot promote health, nor ease pain : 
it makes no increase of merit in the person : 
it creates envy ; it hastens misfortune. 

" ' But what madness must it be to run in debt 
for these superfluities ! We are offered, by the 



304 How to Get on in the World. 

terms of this sale, six months' credit ; and that, 
perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, 
because we cannot spare the ready money, and 
hope now to be fine without it. But, ah ! think 
what you do when you run in debt ; you give 
to another power over your liberty. If you 
cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to 
see your creditor ; you will be in fear when you 
speak to him ; you will make poor, pitiful, 
sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose 
your veracity, and sink into base, downright 
lying ; for, The second vice is lying, the first is 
running in debt, as poor Richard says ; and 
•again, to the same purpose, Lying rides upon 
debt's back. . . . 

" 'And now, to conclude — Experience keeps 
a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, 
as poor Richard says, and scarce in that ; for, 
it is true, We mav give advice, but we cannot 
give conduct. However, remember this — They 
that will not be counselled, cannot be helped ; 
and further, that, If you will not hear Reason, 
she will surely rap your knuckles, as poor 
Richard says.' 

" Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. 
The people heard it and approved the doctrine ; 
and immediately practised the contrary, just as 
if it had been a common sermon, for the 
auctioneer opened, and they began to buy ex- 
travagantly. I found the good man had 
thoroughly studied my almanacs, and digested 
all I had dropt on these topics during the 
course of twenty-five years." 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



